


universial

by Babydoll Ria (Babydoll_Ria)



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Sports, Athletes, F/F, F/M, Porn With Plot, Slow Build, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-09 05:29:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 51,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3238070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Babydoll_Ria/pseuds/Babydoll%20Ria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That’s all it took to make him fall in love-though to be fair he was ten years old and he never knew how much it would change him.</p><p>(Sometimes the things you leave behind don't stay left behind)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. rookie

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nell/gifts).



> This is the Ultimate Frisbee AU I want to write. You can blame/thank Nell for being an amazing lovely person who once I mentioned it, was gung ho for it and really Annie laying out and eating shit for a disc is everything to me.
> 
> I know people don't know a lot about this sport, so here is the wiki and here is some [highlights](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhUays2ehyI)
> 
> The update schedule will probably be every other Monday. Chapter length will vary.

She’s known how to play Ultimate since before she was born. Her mother and father were on the first team in their small town city, back in the 1980s when Ultimate was the default sport for the people in business who didn’t actually want to start a corporate soccer team.

Her mother, pretty beautiful Maria Cresta went into labour on the way to a game, and growing up she never heard the end of how poorly timed her birth was because they didn’t have an alternate for both their best handler( her father) and their cutter(Maria), thus making them forfeit the game.

She was on the sidelines two weeks later, in ugly August swaddled in a pale green blanket that matches her eyes, while her father was on the field. 

Her first real sentence were phrases yelled from the sidelines, that delighted everyone, but her grandmother Mags Cohen yell like a demon making everyone clean up their language so her two year old granddaughter wouldn’t  yell ‘It’s a turn motherfuckers’ in the produce elise again at the local shopping center.

Annie Cresta has been on the field, or the turf, or the sand as the ideal cutter since she was six years old.

When she was fourteen, she was finally able to qualify for World Juniors, and that was the first year the girl’s junior team won Worlds with the unstoppable team of Captain Enobaria Jones, a tall, tan cutter with fierce hand blocks and a tenacity to dive for the disc regardless of who was there trying to stop her, tall and pretty Cassandra “Cashmere” Roberts, whose fear of breaking a nail was rivalled by her slicing flick that could almost decapitate people.

With Annie Cresta, small and under sized with long dark hair pulled in a long ponytail earning her the nickname “Tails”, who found openings that no one  else saw, getting the impossible discs, they  were unstoppable.

But eras end, and at eighteen Enobaria graduated out of juniors and began playing college level.

With just Cashmere and Annie, they made the finals again but this time they fell to Brazil, and once again it was an end of the era, as both Cashmere and her twin brother Gloss entered the college scene. Annie was alone in the world juniors, but it was fine.

* * *

 

Cancer is a silent killer.

Seventeen is a mess when she has to grow up faster than she wants, nothing to hold on to, and no mother to cheer her on on the sidelines, because her beautiful mother the best cutter in the over forty league, who could have gone to nats or even worlds if Ultimate was bigger then, is fighting for her life in a hospital bed, tubes down her throat from a cancer that she cannot pronounce, eating her from the inside.

She can only watch, and remember chasing discs her mother sends soaring, getting praise for being fearless throwing her body on the cold turf that prickles and itches.

She can only watch and cry as her mother dies and never gets to see her  do anything in her life, anything worthwhile at all.

Jonah is a mess, his wife, his lover, his soul mate if you will, is gone.

He can’t take care of himself there is no way he can take care of a seventeen year old girl, small and slight about to crack and fracture irreparable from the chunk of her soul taken away from her by her mother.

Mags comes and takes her in.

Her grandmother holds her while she cries, screaming until her throat is hoarse, demanding an answer from a mother dead and gone and buried and her killer never relenting, never changing.

No one stops her when she trashes her cleats, when the discs and the shorts and the bright neon jerseys that have the number 4, Cresta and Tails all over them are sent packing into landfills or second hand stores.

All she has are memories of Maria and all of them involve burnt garlic bread, card games, and Ultimate and it hurts too much, so she wants to forget.

She wants to forget.

So she does.

* * *

 

> ** sweet huck bro **

* * *

 

Ultimate came accidentally. It was some sport taught in gym class, one that no one seemed to care about. It was perfect for ten year old Finn Odair; he was in the awkward phase of life but he seemed to be going through it much ahead of everyone else.

He was too tall, with long limbs he didn’t have a lot of control of. His skin freckled in the sun, he didn’t become golden in the sun like other California boys.

Running was freeing, and the rules were simple, water-downed for a grade five attention span. Seven people per team, three people stayed back and handler the disc, they threw passes that the four others caught and tried to move up the disc until they scored by catching the disc in the end zone.

It was hard, he couldn’t get the disc flat or far, and he was so, so frustrated that he seemed to be the only person unable to do this-it’s a Frisbee for god’s sake- that he threw the Frisbee upright, whipping it through the air with such force it ended in the other team’s end zone, embedded up right, almost an entire soccer field away from him.

That’s all it took to make him fall in love-though to be fair he was ten years old and he never knew how much it would change him.

* * *

 

He was thirteen and he still wore his body awkwardly, an ugly duckling just really waiting to bloom,  but on the field (never turf, because turf burn is horrible and the little black tire rubber pieces just get everywhere) he feels like he’s finally got some semblance of control.

He can forget for a moment, his horrible step-dad, and his mom, oblivious to everything that happens, and run and call plays with authority that makes the fifteen year old, and the sixteen years old all listen because he may be only thirteen but he’s arguably one of the best handler in southern California.

He was thirteen when he met Snow.

He was not eligible for Worlds, too young to be touched, but Snow, a kind man who reminded him of what a grandfather would be like, but Snow looked at him like he’s an answer to every question he’s not yet asked and handed him a small white business card that has a rose design on it.

* * *

 

Fourteen is the year he blooms; puberty is finally gone and he’s tall, and strong. He’s fast and he’s learning a game sense that is unparalled at such a young age.

Club league is fine and all, but Worlds. World Juniors is where he belongs. These people eat, breathe and sleep Ultimate. And they can appreciate the dynamic of a good hammer, of a Callahan and how to actually play werewolf. Worlds is where he meets Gloss Roberts, the number one handler under eighteen in mens, and where he meets Brutus who’s won several championships and national titles and now he’s couching them with such a ferocity he is winded every night.

It’s his place, and he and Gloss make such a good team handling, Gloss prefers to be a swing, leaving him to play deep. Worlds is the place where the world finally sees Finnick Odair as someone worth paying attention to and he will not let them look away.

* * *

 

Fifteen, he becomes the youngest World captain and it upsets a lot of people-he’s not supposed to be captain but he is and no one can deny his talent.

They’re unbeatable.

* * *

 

Eighteen comes bittersweet and when he’s on the turf, holding the disc Hawthorne caught, winning on universal point, he’s not crying no, but it’s damn near it.

It’s the end of his Juniors career. He gets to go to the big time, college league where there are so many players-like Gloss who will be about to enter his third year of eligibility after a torn ACL from club leagues that took him out of his first year- and it’s daunting because while he is good, and he knows it. He doesn’t know if he’s college league good.

But eighteen also means he’s moving away to Colorado to join the Mamabird (where Gloss is current captain) and his step-dad is so far away he can never touch him.

Eighteen means freedom, and really that’s all he wants.


	2. Juniors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for everyone who kudo'd and commented. 
> 
> It really means a lot to me because as I said before ultimate is really near and dear to my heart and so it's rather hard for me to write about this.
> 
> Although it does mean that when I have to explain things to the babies during training camp in two weeks I've already thought this through better than "Just throw it like this."

It’s more of an ambush at the small coffee shop than a hug but either way Annie Cresta is a new twenty-one, getting crushed by Cashmere whose large sunglasses are still on her face.

‘Tails!’ Cashmere squeals, hugging her deeper until the blonde is more on the girl’s lap than the arm of the pleather chair. ‘Tails it’s been forever!’

‘Yeah,’ Annie says into the neck of her former captain, and favourite handler. She hugs her back, slowly and surely. It’s been a while, almost four years since she last saw the blonde. Since Cashmere moved to Colorado to complete her masters in chemistry, she had been texting Annie relentlessly to move in with her and Enobaria.

Speaking of Enobaria, the older woman, striking as always now grown up as a lawyer, Annie is flashed a toothy smile before she taps her girlfriend on the shoulder lightly, ‘Tails needs to breathe Cash.’

Regretfully, Cashmere lets go of Annie but she doesn’t move out of the arm chair, letting Annie to shift so they can sit more comfortably.

‘How have you been?’ Cashmere asks. ‘It’s been forever-are you playing? How’s your boyfriend?’

‘I’ve been good,’ Annie smiles, ‘It’s my last year so I’m about to die.’

‘Which is why you need to live with us!’ Cashmere interrupts. ‘We can stop you from dying. Also carpooling from league and really it’s so much more convenient so why don’t you-‘

‘Cash,’ Enobaria calls from her own arm chair. ‘Let Tails talk.’

‘But she needs to live with us. It can be like Worlds again and everything will be fun and oh my god-she can meet Finn. I can’t believe you haven’t met Finn. He’s amazing but like he’s a bit of an asshole. Anyway you’ll meet him on Tuesday because that’s when mix happens and I mean-wait obviously you would know him. He’s still playing, he’s captain so what am I saying?’

When Cashmere lets air escape and there is a brief lull in the conversation, appropriate for Annie to speak, she does.

‘I don’t know who Finn is,’ she admits.

Both women goggle at her; it’s a bit comical their matching expressions.

‘He’s all over Ultiworld!’ Cashmere says, as if it will jog her memory. Annie shrugs. ‘He’s the captain of the men’s team at school!’

‘Oh,’ Annie says, and she figures it should be done like a band aid, off quick and fast. ‘Yeah, I don’t play anymore.’

The high pitched what from Cashmere is expected but the low growl that comes from pointed teeth is a surprise.

‘What do you mean you don’t play?’ Enobaria asks.

Annie shrugs. ‘I don’t. I quit when I was like seventeen.’

They wait for a longer story, something more elaborate, something more precise and there is nothing that comes out.

‘Why?’ asks Cashmere in the smallest voice she’s ever heard.  It was a joke in Juniors that you could hear Cashmere anywhere on the field when she was screaming from the sidelines.

‘I was tired.’

It’s the closest to the truth, and well it’s not exactly wrong. She’d been playing since before she can fully remember and now four years of not playing, getting tanned on the field and having to febreeze cleats and keeping in the garage after games.

‘But you need to keep on playing,’ Cashmere insists. ‘I already told everyone that you would join our team for Wednesday night and we would have the best most badass team out there.’

‘What?’

‘Come on Annie,’ Cashmere says, ‘It doesn’t start until September, but we play against the men’s and they’re all Worlds and we need you.  It can be the unstoppable trio once again.’

‘Why me?’

‘Because you have the best field sense I’ve ever seen,’ Enobaria says. ‘And I’ve played real Worlds.’

‘So?’

‘So you have to join! I mean you and Enobaria are the best cutters and then we have Johanna-she’s captain of the women’s team-I thought it was weird you weren’t captain; anyway Jo’s a great handler, wicked fast backhand.  And Katniss-she’s a bartender at Greasy Sue’s, hole in the wall but greatest nachos ever-she’s really, really good. Then there’s Madge, she’s like the most primmest motherfucker on the team. Like she hammers like there’s no tomorrow. Her flick is complete shit but you know, we needed a handler and she seemed to work.’

‘That’s six,’ Annie says, ‘counting me. Who’s your seventh? Or your alternate?’

There’s a look of hesitation on Cashmere’s face which tells her all she needs to know. They don’t have a complete roster.

‘You don’t get it,’ she says. ‘The women’s leagues are going downhill to nothing. The Mamabirds are still the top five, and there are tonnes of men, but Jo’s having trouble keeping women on the team, meaning no one wants to play league.’

‘It might have something to do with Jo’s personality,’ comments Enobaria.

‘Annie we need you to play if we want the women’s league to come back.’

‘Why me?’ Annie asks, ‘Baria is a ranked cutter globally and you’re one of the best handler in the country. You both play Worlds.  You have all the prestige you carry this team.’

‘Because we need our ghost girl,’ Cashmere says seriously, wrapping an arm around her waist. ‘We need the girl who finds the impossible openings and no one ever sees except her ponytail. ‘

‘I’m not her anymore.’ It all feels a bit melodramatic, in this sunlit coffee shop in August. But there’s not a way she can discuss ultimate without getting emotional. This was her family sport, and her father hasn’t finished his mourning and her mother is six feet deep. ‘I’m not…I haven’t played since…Cash I don’t know if I can find openings. Hell I haven’t ran properly in four years. Think about that!’

‘We have a few months,’ Enobaria says. ‘And you can go on the women’s team to get back up to par, and then go back to Worlds. Snow’s been going crazy trying to find you.’

She wrinkles her nose. President Snow is the current head of the American Disc League, and one of the biggest sponsors for Team America when it comes to Worlds.  He was a stern man, from her memories, polite and cold and smelt like roses, but otherwise she wouldn’t consider herself memorable.

‘Why? There are so many better cutters than me.’

‘Your field sense Annie,’ Enobaria reminds her, ‘There’s no one playing right now with anything close to it.  Haymitch back in the day, but he’s not able to do anything really now.’

Haymitch Abernathy was captain for the Worlds men’s team for ten years in a row, before a knee injury, and pushing thirty-five got him to retire. From the emails from Cashmere, she’s heard he’s taken up coaching the Mamabirds.

‘Why do you want me to play so badly?’

It’s Enobaria who answers instead of her girlfriend, steady and sure and her words hit like a freight train, just like she does.

‘Because we love you, you love playing. You’re good, and you need to do something that makes you happy and I know that this makes you happy, so you might as well enjoy it.’

It’s hard to argue.

* * *

 

 

> **you just got skyed asshole**

* * *

 

The lab’s air conditioning is broken and it feels like a million degrees and he wishes shorts and sandals were appropriate lab fashion because he is dying in this heat.

He’s from California, near the border so close he went to Tecate almost every other weekend to play with some choice players, he shouldn’t be this affected.

His lab partner seems completely unaffected by this horrible condition, instead she’s busy looking at the data already collected and the data they are currently trying to collect.

‘Cash,’ he whines, lying flat across the cool metal table. ‘Cash I’m dying.’

‘Die quietly then please,’ Cashmere says completely unaffected. ‘I need to concentrate.’

He frowns.

Cashmere is one of his good friends, and the former captain of the women’s team. She’s doing her masters, however she’s in her sixth year and thus ineligible to play. She’s also ignoring him. Mamabird is doing pretty good, they came third at Nats which admittedly isn’t as high as he wanted, but he chalks it up to Peeta and Gale trying to learn how to play together.

He doesn’t know the exact history between the two, but he garners they have some bad blood over some girl in high school. It doesn’t matter now, because he’s finally gotten the right chemistry down pat with the handlers (himself, Peeta and Thresh), and the cutters (Gale, Cato, Marvel and Thom) for the first string, and they are slowly but surely growing a better program for the second strings. When he passes out of eligibility next year, he’s pretty sure he’s giving the captaincy to Gale. Peeta is too nice, and looks for the emotional angle which works (and is something he uses more often than not) but emotions won’t win a game if you don’t have the strong foundation.

‘Cash I’m dying inside how am I supposed to run a tryout tonight in this heat?’

‘With a lot of water.’

‘Cash’

She ignores him. He doesn’t take it too personally, when she’s the one actually doing lab work.

‘Are you coming to help run tryouts?’ he asks, curious now. Gloss is coming to help him run them, even though he has a day job as a software engineer. 

‘No,’ Cashmere says calmly.

‘Why not?’

‘Because Jo doesn’t like me and I don’t like Jo so she didn’t ask me.’

‘Jo doesn’t like anyone,’ he says impatiently.

Cashmere looks up from the papers in front of her pointedly, ‘She likes you.’

‘No she doesn’t,’ he argues. Cashmere snorts. ‘She doesn’t.’

‘Maybe you need to tell her that.’

‘It was two years ago, she’s moved on.’

‘She tried to decapitate someone with a disc because you had your hands down her pants.’

‘Jo was drunk!’

‘That doesn’t make it better,’ Cashmere points out. ‘Finn, I adore you. But Jo’s batshit insane, and you slept with ax crazy and she’s not over you.’

‘It’s just sex.’

‘Not to her,’ Cashmere says. ‘And that’s just half of your problems.’

* * *

 

Tryouts are brutal. But they’re designed to be; he personally enjoys playing long points so he needs to make sure there’s endurance on the team.

They start with ten laps around the football field that they reserved for tryouts. They then do suicides up and down until they hit the center line.  Gloss and Haymitch in sunglasses and baseball caps walk around making notes, while he runs the tryout with the team. There’s no point in making the team do something he wouldn’t do himself.

‘Okay,’ Finnick calls grabbing water once the suicides are done, ‘Okay now start stretching we’re done warm up.’

‘Warm up?’ sputters someone; a first year by the look of it, and his nametag doesn’t ring any bells. He bets the player was a high school ace, and never actually thought of ultimate as varsity like it is here; he’s probably still thinking it’s a recreational club league.

‘Well yeah,’ he grins more teeth than smile, ‘that’s how we play, long, hard and dirty.’

‘Is that how you fuck as well Odair?’ Haymitch calls from the other side of the field.

‘You know it old man.’ Finnick turns to the rest of the boys, some wearing ultimate shorts, others in basketball shirts. ‘Look if you want to quit for whatever reason go. No one will stop you. But here’s the thing, we are going to win Nationals this year, and we need people who will bleed for this disc. I guarantee you I will be bleeding for the disc, just like everyone else. So if you’re not going to stay, get the fuck out because you’re wasting everyone’s time.’

That’s the end of any protests.

They run bread and butter, and do some huck drills before running relay.

After thirty minutes of drill, they break into two scrimmages, shirts against skins, and he sits back and watches.

There are very people he trusts with ultimate; Haymitch, Gloss, Brutus and Beetee are four of them. All of them played Worlds, and more importantly all of them know an aspect of the game better than he does.

‘What do you think?’

‘Mellark is still a write-off,’ Haymitch says showing his clipboard with chicken scratch. ‘He’s got strength but he’s barely keeping up with the others.’

‘His pop passes though,’ Gloss interjects. ‘That’s where he’s brilliant, and why I put him on the team last year. He’s got impeccable timing.’

‘That’s not good for outdoors,’ the coach argues, the harsh lines around his eyes come from a combination of sun, alcohol and something else he’s not told any of them. ‘If he wants to do those passes, play indoor leagues.’

‘Who else would we get to handle?’ Finnick asks frustrated. ‘You want Marvel? He’ll fucking scoober it for no reason. He’s not a pressure player. Peeta’s good under pressure on the field. I don’t have to worry about Hawthorne getting pissed because he has to catch an unnecessary scoober.’

‘Fine,’ Haymitch says. ‘Fine. I’m telling you though, when you need someone to run, he’s not going to be able to keep up.’

‘Mellark,’ Finnick yells. ‘We’re running tomorrow at six! Get your ass up.’

He’s not losing the title.

* * *

 

> **[SMS from JMASON]** fml
> 
> **[SMS from FODAIR]** tryouts not good
> 
> **[SMS from JMASON]**   understatement
> 
> **[SMS from FODAIR]** L
> 
> **[SMS from JMASON]**   I need bodies i don’t even need good right now
> 
> **[SMS from FODAIR]** that sucks

* * *

 

Wednesday is the worst day in terms of air conditioning; he’s starting to figure he should make a chart of how many days since it last worked properly.

Cashmere, as always is puttering around the lab without breaking a sweat. He hates her a little bit. But he needs to ask her something. She’s a girl, and she plays ultimate and what’s more she knows Jo so she knows what type of girl she can send Jo’s way that will not come out feeling like she needs to immediately resign.

And for the sake of sanity, it can’t be any of the girls he’s hooked up with.

‘I need girls,’ he says cornering Cashmere near the eye wash station.

‘I’ve heard Tindr works,’ she says dryly.

Finnick rolls his eyes, ‘No not for that. I mean for Jo.’

‘Jo swings that way? Huh, I guess what we had was sexual tension.’

‘For the team Cashmere, the team!’ Finnick says. ‘I know you have a new roommate-Gloss told me-and anyone who can live with you and Teethy can stand Jo on her worst day.’

Cashmere hesitates before she speaks, ‘Annie’s…Annie’s maybe not the best-‘

‘Does she play?’ he interrupts.

‘No.’

 _Fuck_ , he thinks, but he schools his expression into one that is less annoyed and more pleasant. It’s the look that usually gets him anything he wants-it doesn’t work generally on Cashmere, or Enobaria or Gloss but he figures there’s some sexual orientation that figures into that. ‘Is she in school here?’

‘Yeah,’ Cashmere admits. ‘But Finn I don’t-‘

‘It’s fine,’ he says quickly. ‘I’ll teach her everything. Everything Cash, I’m desperate, please.’

Cashmere sighs, and he knows a victory when he sees it. He hugs her.

‘Thank you, thank you, thank you. Cash I love you.’

‘Don’t let Jo hear you say that,’ Cashmere says smilingly slightly. ‘I’ll call her to see if she’s interested.’

* * *

 

Of all the Starbucks, she would have to say this is her favourite, and not just because they have air conditioning and a back patio that is fully shaded.

She doesn’t know why she is here, besides Cashmere calling her at lunch asking if she’d meet her and a friend at Starbucks after work. She agreed, despite desperately thinking she needs a shower after a long hard day of being a camp counsellor at the day camp the university runs.

‘Annie!’ she turns, and she can see Cashmere in a pretty sundress and strappy sandals with her blonde hair in perfect curls that make her just the slightest bit jealous.  She feels completely underdressed in jean cut offs, beat up tennis shoes and an old t-shirt and a messy pony tail that’s sticking to the back of her neck.

‘Hey,’ she smiles moving up a bit to lazily hug her friend (and new roommate starting in September).

‘Annie this is Finn,’ Cashmere smiles, sitting down on the other side of the bench she’s occupying. Annie glances up at Cashmere’s friend.

He’s good looking. Finn is tall, and tan with bronze hair that has copper highlights and curls around his ears. He’s dressed casually in shorts and a shirt, with sunglasses covering his eyes.’

‘Hi,’ she says offering him a smile, as Cashmere elbows her.

‘Hey,’ he grins, a mouth full of pearly white teeth in a row, and she now understands what people say when they mean sex god. There’s nothing else that indicates that, but his smile is pure sex, sin and lust and it’s very dangerous.

She stares at him, as Cashmere elbows her and he looks back, and there’s something smug about his smile, like he’s already won. Finally she turns her gaze away from Finn to look at Cashmere quizzically.  Cashmere rolls her eyes at her exasperated; it’s rude to ask what’s going on with her, so she moves to trying to figure out what this is all about.

‘So, what’s going on?’ she asks in a would be casual tone.

‘Do you know what Ultimate is?’ Finn says, crouching down so they’re on an even eye line.

‘What?’ Annie jerks back surprised.  To be honest, she figured this was going to be a blind date or something-Cashmere and Enobaria were pestering her that she needs to get laid after a six month fast of sorts.

‘So Ultimate is this great fat pace, non-contact sport,’ Finn says, interpreting her surprise as a negative. ‘It’s a lot of running, and a lot of fun. It’s a team sport, seven on seven.  And Cashmere told me you go to the university right?’ he doesn’t let her answer; instead he plows on while she stares at him mystified. ‘So the women’s team really needs players, and I’ll teach you everything so you can play and will you?’

He waits now, for her answer.

‘You’re going to teach me how to play ultimate-what?’ Annie sputters her mind wheeling as she tries to figure out what is happening.

‘Yeah,’ Finn says reaching to grab her hands, she yanks them away. She doesn’t like people touching her. ‘Yeah I will. Tonight, tomorrow whenever. I’ll teach you all the basics, so when you show up to practise you’re not completely lost.’

She stares, and then turns to stare at Cashmere who is turning red as she’s trying to stop her laughter.

‘You’re going to teach me how to play?’ she asks again, because she doesn’t really understand why anyone would need to teach her a sport she was literally born to play.

‘Yeah, of course,’ Finn says like an eager puppy.

Then it dawns on her, he doesn’t know she can play-well she doesn’t know if she can play either after her four year hiatus; it’s almost hilarious. She’s played World Juniors, she’s played league and high school, and competitive club.

She knows what she’s doing, but this pretty boy who she just connects the dots is Finn Odair, the captain of the men’s team who’s an asshole of some sort, doesn’t think she does.

This could be fun, and she did promise she would play on the league team on Wednesday.

‘Okay,’ she says. ‘I’ll do it.’

* * *

 

He and Annie plan to meet the next night at the corner field, on the off side of campus at seven. He’s a bit early, so he’s jogging around the field when a green Toyota that has to be about fifteen years old parks next to his jeep.

Annie locks her car and comes to join him in running shorts, running shoes and a purple tank top and a pony tail.

He resists the urge to sigh, he had hoped that Cashmere or Enobaria would have lent her proper shorts, or even cleats. But at a second look, it makes sense why they hadn’t; Cashmere is about five foot ten and Enobaria is an impressive six foot, Annie barely reaches five.

‘Hi,’ he says grinning.

She smiles back weakly and unimpressed, ‘Hey.’

‘So thanks for doing this.’

She shrugs, ‘You needed help. And you said you were going to teach me.’

‘Right, of course,’ Finnick says, jogging to his bag to pick up a disc. ‘So tell me what you know about Ultimate?’

‘It’s seven on seven, a fast paced game, with a lot of running and a Frisbee,’ Annie recites.

‘Right, okay,’ Finnick nods. ‘So firstly it’s not a Frisbee, it’s a disc.’ He tosses her the disc in a small lazy push pass, her green eyes widen and she scrambles to get the disc and misses. He winces. ‘And there are two positions-well three, but the third one is a swing so…yeah.’

‘A what?’

‘A swing, they play both handler and cutter.’

‘You’re losing me.’

He sighs. Would it have been too much for Cashmere or Enobaria to have explained the basic positions to this girl before she came?

‘So handlers are the best with the disc, they can see openings and are generally the ones who have the disc and call the plays. There are three handlers, I’m a handler actually. You with me?’

Annie nods, still looking unimpressed.

‘Then there are four cutters, they’re the ones who score and run. They pass to the other cutters, or to the handlers. They have to catch the disc.’

‘So handler throw, and cutters catch?’ Annie asks.

‘Really bad explanation, but basically,’ he tells her. The finesse of the sport could come later, right now he has to explain it in what feels like fifth grade terms just to make sure there’s a women’s team. ‘So the only way to score is to catch the disc in the opposing team’s end zone, kind of like football.’

‘Okay, easy enough. Any rules?’ Annie asks, tilting her head.

‘You can’t run with the disc, that’s a travel. You can’t hit another player; you have ten seconds once you’ve established a pivot foot to throw the disc before it’s a turn over.’

‘What’s a pivot foot?’

He sighs. It really is just the basics then. ‘Are you right handed or left handed?’

Annie has a puzzled look on her face; he’s stumped her with the most basic elementary question he could have asked.

‘Left,’ she says after a moment of decision. He should truly resist the urge to ask if she wants to think it over, because she’s doing him a huge favour by helping Jo out, but he doesn’t.

The look she gives him is one icy and cold. He shrugs it off.

‘Okay so if your left hand is your dominant hand that means your right foot is your pivot foot. So it can’t move, make sense? You have to use your left foot to pivot.’

She nods, and he moves on to the two basic throws she’ll have to know, jogging a few feet away from her.

‘Throw me the disc.’

She hesitates before throwing the disc sloppily. It doesn’t fly flat but it makes the ten foot distance between them, he catches it easily.

‘Okay, so that’s a backhand. That’s the most basic and normal throw. The other throw is a flick,’ he switches his fingers so his middle and pointer fingers are underneath the disc, and his thumb on top for balance and sends the disc back to her, she drops it.

He sighs.

‘So how do you do it?’ Annie asks, and he has to jog back and position her hands properly.  Her finger nails are painted pale purple; they’ll be chipped and broken before the end of the week he guarantees it.

‘It’s all about the wrist. Like you’re whipping someone,’ he guides her hand in the flick motion a few times, trying to be certain she’ll get it, before he makes her release.

The disc only goes about ten feet.

He sighs again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading and if there are any questions, my tumblr is seevikifangirl or you can ask them in the comments and I'll try to explain it all!


	3. rec

When she parks the car in her driving spot Monday night two weeks into Finnick Odair’s remedial ultimate lessons, she’s fuming.

It’s much harder to pretend she doesn’t know how to play then she thought and she wants nothing more to deck him. There are only so many patronizing comments she can pretend to not understand.

She’s muttering under her breathe as she climbs the stairs in their turn of the century house that’s been converted into apartments, and she wants to just complain to Cashmere and Enobaria about everything, but when she comes into the foyer, kicking off the old gym shoes and throwing her bag against the wall they have company.

‘Bad day?’ Enobaria asks dryly, as Annie turns a rich scarlet. Cashmere and Enobaria are lounging in the living room, with two bottles of wine already open, and a women around the same age a Annie with dark hair and kohl rimmed eyes glaring at her like she’s the most useless person on the planet.

‘I want to murder him,’ she says, picking up her bag. ‘Sorry I’m Annie, you are?’

‘Jo,’ the woman says and she’s quicker on the uptake this time.  This woman is captain of the women’s ultimate team at school. ‘Who’re you killing?’

‘Finn Odair,’ Annie grimaces, trudging to her bedroom missing the looks on the faces of the other women. When she returns, in jeans and an old t shirt with a wine glass in hand, she makes herself comfortable on the floor.

‘Why you killing Finn?’ Jo pounces, something glinting in her eye as she pours a large glass of white chardonnay.

‘He’s teaching me ultimate,’ Annie answers and Enobaria several glasses of wine deep can’t help the snort that comes from her teeth.

‘Why?’ Jo asks.

‘To join your team. He really likes you y’know because he hates teaching ultimate,’ she says.

‘Really?’  She’s just met Johanna, and she’s had a surly expression on her face the entire time but that one word comes out shy and quiet, like a school girl.

‘Yeah,’ she nods sipping the wine. ‘He’s an asshole, you were right Cash.’

‘I always am,’ Cashmere smirks. ‘But what did the golden boy do now?’

‘He’s teaching openings,’ Annie says frowning. ‘With pylons and shoes and water bottles, he’s trying to teach me how to read the field.’

The other women dissolve into laughter, while Johanna frowns. ‘You played with them right? On Worlds? So why is he teaching you how to play?’

‘He wouldn’t let me finish my sentence really,’ Annie says passively tilting her head. ‘Did you play juniors?’

‘No I didn’t start playing until University. I used to play basketball,’ Jo answers. ‘What do you mean he wouldn’t let you finish your sentence?’

Annie shrugs, ‘He’s that desperate to make sure you have a team he wouldn’t let me tell him I do know how to play and then he just kind of…pissed me off so I decided I’d waste both of our time by letting him teach me. He should never teach.’

‘What do you mean?’ Enobaria asks.

‘”Are you sure you’re left handed?” “No, let’s drop the disc again.” You can’t touch the disc when it’s a turn over we’ve just turned it over.”’ She tries mocking his voice, making it deeper and more sarcastic.

‘You’re ambidextrous,’ Enobaria points out. ‘You didn’t tell him?’

‘And make it easier on him?’

‘You know,’ Cashmere says conversationally. ‘When we do sports camps for kids, he’s really good with them.’

‘Then what happened? He’s bad with girls?’

‘Finn’s never been bad with girls,’ Johanna says in a voice that sounds normal, but she can feel the ice laced through it.

‘Are you his girlfriend?’

The moment of hesitation is enough to give an answer. No Johanna is not Finnick’s girlfriend, but he wants to be and it feels like they are all but.

‘Finn’s an asshole sometimes,’ Jo says instead.

‘You probably know more than I do.’

‘Oh hey,’ Cashmere says interrupting a silent stare off of which Annie doesn’t know why she is a participant. ‘Gloss wants to huck.’

‘You know you and your other really need to edit yourself sometimes,’ Enobaria tells her girlfriend. 

‘Finn’s pissed off because Tails isn’t improving as fast as he wants-not everyone’s a prodigy although actually you are; and he wants to throw discs and get drunk.’

‘If I show up, things will just be comical,’ Annie points out. ‘Also I want to kill him so that might be a bad idea.’

‘I would love to see that,’ Enobaria says. ‘You’re five foot nothing and he’s a giant. It’s David and Goliath.’

‘I win right?’ Her knowledge of biblical stories is limited, there is no god in sports and her parents, a teacher and a nurse had seen victims of religion every day.

‘Depends on who you are,’ Johanna says. ‘I mean from where he’s standing, you’re David. Tiny and not expected to win, but from where I’m standing you won three World juniors and still have people trying to emulate you so...’

‘I didn’t win them on my own,’ Annie says uncomfortable with how this conversation is going. She looks back at her half empty glass and fills it up. ‘Cash gave me good discs and Enobaria’s a great captain.’

‘I’m none of that,’ Johanna says briskly. ‘I’m not a team player, and my discs are fast and hard. So if you play on the team, it’s not going to be like Worlds. I’ve got two first years who don’t know how to throw the damn disc and are only here because we need players.’

‘I’ll catch it,’ Annie says. ‘If you want to win, we will win. But you have to throw it at me.’

* * *

>  lay out motherfuckers

* * *

 

For some reason Jo changed the schedule of the women’s team practise to when he’s in the lab or class, so he can’t see any of the practise or help out. He does get to see the roster.

 

> Johanna Mason (C ) #7
> 
> Katniss Everdeen #12
> 
> Madge Undersea #1
> 
> Delly Cartwright#2
> 
> Primrose Everdeen #13
> 
> Rue Kingston #8
> 
> Annie Cresta  #4

They’re playing savage.  It won’t end well for them; the best they can hope for is quick matches.  But at least they have enough to play.

He has plans to meet Jo at his office to plan Rookie Party, where all the rookies have time to meet and talk everything over while getting so drunk that when they make them play the Men verses Women Hangover scrimmage, almost all of them barf on the sidelines.

He’s got his coffee with two milk, four sugar and he’s looking at the labs from killer chem 101 that he has to mark when the door gets nudged open and Johanna Mason in a tank top and shorts, looking like she came out of the gym is here, with to his great surprise, Annie Cresta in a pretty sundress looking like she’s out for a Sunday stroll rather than the third day of classes.

He should pretend not to hear Annie pull Johanna’s arm back and hiss, ‘You never told me we were meeting that asshole.’

He should, it’s not like he’s spent three times a week for two hours each time for the past three weeks teaching this girl how to play ultimate when he’s not certain she could cross the street by herself without tripping.

‘Annie,’ he says instead, smiling widely, ‘How’s the thigh?’

Two nights ago, she was chasing the disc and she ran head first into the bench on the sidelines, falling over and getting a nasty bruise on her upper thigh.

‘Great,’ she says tightly. ‘Thanks for asking.’

‘What can I do for you ladies then?’ he asks, leaning backwards in his chair. There’s a faint flush on Jo’s ears and neck, while Annie looks unimpressed and bored. ‘I know it’s not to plan Rookie Party because Jo wouldn’t bring a rookie to plan it.’

The look on the petit dark haired girl looks like she’s had to swallow a lemon while being electrocuted.

‘Rookie-‘she scoffs and he smirks.

‘Annie’s the oldest player on the team,’ Jo intervenes.  ‘She wanted to come to the planning to see if she’ll go to the party.’

He’s insulted. Rookie Party is a rite of passage, a bonding moment letting the teams realize they are one team and one family. The idea of close-knit friendship can only be formed wearing costumes and drinking absurd amount of liquor for blurry memories and shaky photos. He understands of course, that Annie Cresta did not want to join Ultimate; he does remember begging her to join. If she wanted to quit she could have told him any time, though he admits he would have used everything he had in his power to keep her around just to make up the body count.

But there’s a line, and that line is mocking the idea of werewolf, and ninja and all of the bonding that comes from teams that go to Rookie Party and have seen you all in various states of undress and inebriated and refusing to go-well he’s not in charge of the women’s team and if he was, he’d kick her off as soon as possible.

‘It’s team bonding,’ he sputters. ‘It’s mandatory.’

‘We could do a spa night and not break the law by letting eighteen year olds drink,’ Annie smiles. ‘If it’s anything like the Friendship Olympics than I’m not going.’

He stares, trying to figure out how on earth she would know about the Friendship Olympics. It was Rookie Party two years ago, the time when both Katniss and Peeta got black out drunk and Katniss lost her virginity upstairs in a frat bed to Peeta without either of them remembering until someone (him) posted photos of them making out in the space between the beer pong table and the couch.

As far as he knows that also marks the last time Katniss and Peeta hooked up, as Katniss was incredibly embarrassed and hasn’t said more than twelve words to Peeta since.

‘That was a fun time,’ he argues. ‘We got our third noise complaint that night.’

‘Sounds thrilling.’

‘You’re not a party girl?’ he asks, but he already knows the answer. Annie Cresta wouldn’t be a party girl if she was high on ecstasy with four hours left to live.

‘Not my thing.’

Of course it isn’t her thing, like running, or catching or actually being athletic isn’t her thing.

‘You know what,’ Annie says turning to Jo, ‘I’m going to go, plan your drunk frat party and maybe I’ll show up, I don’t know.’

Annie turns and leaves and he can’t let her have the last word because that would be like losing, ‘Maybe I don’t want you to come.’

Jo stares at him, a look of utter disbelief on her face, ‘What the hell was that?’ she asks.

‘Nothing,’ he tells her fixing a carefree smile. ‘Let’s get down to business. We’re having it at your place right?’

It only makes sense, she shares a house with Katniss, Madge and Delly three of the seven members of the team. He assumes Primrose and Rue both first years, live on residence.

‘Yeah, we’re locking the cat up in the basement.’

‘You’ve got a cat?’

Johanna shudders, this is a new development and she doesn’t seem to like it much. He can’t really blame her for that. ‘Prim’s cat. She can’t have it in residence and their mom’s a bit…so we’ve got a cat.’

‘Okay then, cat in the basement.’

* * *

 

By the time Friday rolls around, he’s spent the past three hours going from store to store trying to find a damn foldable table that’s the right height for beer pong because Johanna’s lost her table somewhere and Gloss is using his for his own team party in a sign of protest of not being able to play college level anymore.

He needs a freaking drink.

But he doesn’t instead he gets Hawthorne texting him, worried about the dangers of underage drinking that he’s ushering his brother-Vic or Rick or Rory something like that-into; conveniently forgetting that he himself has more than participated in enough underage drinking to get his face on the rookie coins they’ll be giving out for each rookie that accomplishes the task.

There are in total fifteen rookies and out of that fifteen only three are for the women’s team, two eighteen year old girls named Rue and Primrose and one Annie Cresta.

The list of tasks is simple and routine:

  *          Get the captain’s underwear
  *          Get Everdeen’s phone number
  *          Find out the fifth ingredient in cheese buns
  *          Switch clothes with a rookie of the opposite sex for the rest of the night
  *          Get as many different labels of beer as you can (no repeats)
  *          Beat Hawthorne and Everdeen at beer pong
  *          Beat the  Vets at flip cup
  *          Perform a lap dance or strip tease to a song of a Vet’s choice to a Vet



When he pulls into the driveway of the detached town house Jo shares with the majority of the team, he is dying for the Vet pizza and beer poker game before the rookies get there at nine.  He also has a human height beer pong table for them to use in the pack of his car.

He can’t ring the doorbell and keep the table upright, so he kind of kick the door in an attempt for someone to notice and open it for him. He’s in luck, pretty Madge has the door open for him.

‘Lookin’ hot,’ he tells her eyeing the black mini dress she’s wearing. He doesn’t know how the black dress works for the jungle themed party but it doesn’t really matter when you can wear it the way Madge Undersea can.

Blonde, curvy and short no one would argue that Madge is not the head turner on the women’s team; it’s not that Katniss, Johanna or Delly aren’t good looking, it’s just Johanna if you look at her the wrong way might kill you, Delly talks too much, and Katniss looks like a deer in the headlights more often than not. He hasn’t seen Primrose or Rue but eighteen is a bit too young for his tastes, and Annie Cresta is simply a thorn in his side as he has continuously trained her into making her a bottom spectrum of average player. Johanna really owes him a drink.

‘Thanks Finn,’ Madge says smiling demurely, and when he’s set the table against the wall she hugs him briefly.

‘So what are you being?’ he asks, ‘A black panther? Do I finally get to live my fantasies of finally seeing you in cat ears?’

‘Hey,’ Hawthorne’s voice says, and they both turn in the foyer to see Gale leaning against the doorway holding a beer. ‘Jerk off to my girlfriend in the privacy of your own place.’

‘No Gale,’ Madge says patiently, ‘The correct response is don’t fantasy about my girlfriend.’

‘Really? Shit.’ Madge rolls her eyes.

‘I’m going to be an explorer,’ she tells him. ‘Delly’s upstairs putting feathers in Katniss’s hair.’

‘Where’s Jo?’ he asks following the couple into the kitchen where everyone is more or less meandering. He finds Jo arguing with Thresh over how many slices of pizza he has eaten and stops straight.

‘You’re a fucking tree?’ he asks.

Johanna is wearing a green lace sort of bra and brown leggings with dollar store fake leaves wrapped around most of her upper body. ‘Yeah Odair,’ she turns flashing her teeth at him. ‘Got a problem with that?’

‘No,’ he says. He shouldn’t say anything, his costume is a pair of red ultimate shorts red suspenders and tights that resemble a leopard. He’s brought body paint so he can continue the pattern up his body.

* * *

 

It’s been a very long time since she had to do a rookie party; even longer since she was a rookie and so there’s some sort of humiliation that comes with it, she figures as she parks her car down the road. She’s decided she’s not going to drink tonight, because she only really knows Johanna and despite consistently proving that she is perhaps the most talented member on the team, there is still the very strong feeling that no one will throw to her that lingers on the back of her tongue like a pill he’s unable to swallow.

Cashmere and Enobaria (both who are going to Gloss’s anti-rookie party tonight) don’t approve of what she’s wearing-a red leather pencil skirt and a black halter top with a cheap plastic red cat mask. It’s too fancy they argued, too much what you would wear to a grown up costume party and not a college rookie night.

It’s fitting she thinks, as her red leather stiletto heels hit the walkway to the house with white siding. She’s too old for a rookie party, and yet here she is.

It’s only nine thirty, but when she walks in there are already people drinking and Delly is on her like a flash.

‘We have a Rookie!’ she calls over the music and the chatter. ‘We need to Simba you!’

Annie can only blink when red face paint is spread across both cheeks and then she is kissed lightly on the lips by Delly.

‘Welcome,’ Delly says, ‘to Ultimate.’

‘Thanks,’ says Annie.

Delly smiles and flounces off leaving Annie to navigate to the living room where a large white piece of paper is thumbtacked into the wall and in black marker she sees her name and a list of tasks up at the top she has yet to complete.

There are a few, like the strip tease, and the change of clothes she doesn’t think she’ll do but the others all seem doable and simple.

‘Hi,’ she says marching up to a blonde boy with curls who looks relatively near her age-or rather he’s missing the wide eyed look first years have when they’re at their first college party and he’s holding himself comfortably in the corner watching the intense beer pong match going on between Katniss, a dark haired boy and Prim and Rue. Prim’s cheeks are rather red. ‘I’m Annie.’

‘Peeta,’ he says offering her his hand. ‘Welcome to the team.’

‘Thanks,’ she says. ‘I need the label off your beer.’

Peeta looks a bit surprised, but he turns the bottle around in his hand and scraped off the LeBat’s Bleu logo and hands it to her, ‘Most of the guys here drink Coors. Finn drinks Guinness and Madge drinks Bud Light.’

‘So really I only need to get four labels?’

‘Yup,’ Peeta nods. ‘No one’s tried that one yet-everyone’s trying to get drunk or play beer pong.’

‘I’m driving so,’ she shrugs. ‘I might try to win it.’

‘Really?’

‘Nah,’ she laughs. ‘I have some ethical issues with the strip tease thing. No one sees my underwear unless I’ve gotten a Red Lobster dinner out of it.’

‘Standards, nice.’

‘Or the abuse of a system,’ she shrugs, ‘Either or.’

‘Hey-if the system was set up to benefit me in that one way, I’d do it,’ Peeta smiles at her as if they’ve shared a secret and she can’t help but laugh loudly. It gathers attention and she notices the way Katniss frowns at her-that’s interesting and something she wants to test out.

Annie puts a palm on Peeta’s forearm and squeeze as she moves into his space making him bend his head to hear her, ‘Girls like food. Easiest way to get one is to include food. We don’t really want a boyfriend, we want someone who will leave bed to get the food out of the microwave so we don’t have to pause Netflix.’

The look of surprise and a bit of disgust makes her laugh and she steps back, ‘Microwave food?’ he repeats incredulously. ‘You’re worse than Finn. Microwave food honestly.’

‘Not everyone can be a housewife,’ she shrugs. ‘But keep that in mind won’t you?’

‘Sure Annie,’ he says rolling his eyes.

She grins at him, candy floss sweet and then goes to hunt down Madge.

She finds the blonde on the stairs with her boyfriend, who coincidentally is drinking Coors.

‘I need your beer labels,’ she tells them briskly.

Her boyfriend, the one who was playing beer pong with Katniss a while back, but has seemingly abandoned the game looks up at her from his seat on the stairs with a dark expression, ‘What are you going to do for me to get it?’

‘Ask politely.’ She knows this is a pissing game, he’s a tipsy male ultimate player and she’s a rookie. But she’s played Worlds, and she grew up with boys who throw hammers just to show off and she is not at all intimidated.

‘Nah,’ he says. ‘You should give Madge a lap dance.’

Madge, on her part looks mildly unimpressed with her boyfriend’s response but doesn’t offer to refute it.

‘No,’ Annie says.

‘Then you can’t get my label.’

‘Okay, can I have yours Madge?’

‘Why won’t you do the lap dance?’  Madge asks unpeeling the label off the beer.

‘Because I don’t want to.’

‘Fair enough.’ With the Bud Light label in hand as well as Peeta’s, she’s half way there and when she’s searching for Finnick she almost trips on a half empty bottle of Coors left on the ground. Shrugging she rips the label off-they never did say she needed to ask someone.  She goes off trying to find an empty of Guinness and instead finds Finnick at the flip cup table in the kitchen.

She also notices two or three empty Guinness bottles with the labels pulled off and shredded.

‘I need your beer label,’ Annie marches up to him, interrupting his conversation with someone she doesn’t know. 

‘Annie,’ Finnick says smirking at her. He’s much taller and more naked than she remembers but she’s only met him twice when he wasn’t wearing his uniform, so this might be a natural occurrence for him. ‘People say hello first.’

‘Hello,’ she says sarcastically. ‘I need your beer label.’

‘And what will you do for me for it?’

‘Why does everyone ask me this?’ Annie complains. ‘I’m doing this because you put it on the fucking list.’

‘Touche,’ he nods at her. ‘Then let’s make you Rookie Queen.’

‘What? Why?’

Finnick doesn’t answer, instead he turns and catches her wrist with his hand and drags her into the small bathroom off the kitchen.

‘I know karate,’ she tells him trying to stand as far away from the toilet because there’s this weird purple glitter puke sitting in it, and as far away from Finnick whose set his beer on the counter. ‘What are you doing?’

He’s pulling down his suspenders, and the rights and the shorts until he’s almost naked save for his green boxers and the spots drawn on his skin, ‘I trained you personally Cresta,’ he says grinning as he yanks off his boxers.

‘Oh my god,’ she covers her eyes and turns to face the window.

‘It would be a mark on my record if you didn’t win the tiara.’

‘Why are you naked?’

He throws his boxers at her, and they land on her shoulder and she picks them up cringing.

‘Get the captain’s underwear with their permission, check.’

‘I just wanted your beer label,’ she whines as she focuses on the green boxers and not the naked man beside her.

‘Smile,’ he tells her brightly and she looks up confused to see the front facing camera on his iPhone aimed at them, showing her holding the boxers looking very unimpressed and a bit sick.

‘Your junk’s not covered-why...’ she doesn’t get an answer before he snatches his boxer back and pulls them up.

‘Most girls would try to sneak a peek,’ he tells her grinning at how uncomfortable she looks.

‘I had and still do no desire to see your dick,’ she tells him. ‘Will you now give me the fucking label?’

‘Nope,’ he says smugly.

‘Why not?’

‘Switch clothes with me and then you  get the beer label.’

‘Fine,’ she reaches behind and unzips her pencil skirt letting it fall to the ground. She’s come this far, it doesn’t matter anymore.  She steps out of it, and pulls her halter top and mask off to let him wear it, before grabbing the tights which have the foots cut off, and the red ultimate shorts and the suspendors.

‘God you’re tiny,’ he complains, unable to get both legs in the skirt. He doesn’t even try to get the shirt over his head, leaving it on his head like some sort of baret held in place by the masc.

‘Don’t rip my skirt.’

‘I’m not going to rip it,’ he tells her, as he manages to shimy it down his chest to fit unzipped around his hips awkwardly.

‘Wait-you don’t have a shirt,’ she realizes when she’s glaring at him, her red bra exposed perfectly.

‘Yup,’ he tells her brightly. ‘See ya,’

The bathroom door muffles her scream.

* * *

 

Thursday night he has to drive all the way to Wyoming for an open tournament, which means that on a team of twenty-eight he needs to coordinate six cars to get to the motel, plus rent seven rooms in a row, while dealing with class scheduales and first years who have never played a tournament before.

It’s not that bad, because he has his car, Thresh has a car and so does Peeta. Gloss and Haymitch are both driving, and he has to beg Cashmere and bribe her with Starbucks for an entire month as well as washing the beakers to get her car for the weekend so Gale can drive.

The women need two cars, from Annie and Jo and everything is so much easier for them. He’d feel jealous but they’re playing savage.

It’s about a three hour drive to Laramie in traffic, and his car is the latest on the men’s team leaving at nine thirty after the last of the night classes, conicindetnally he’s leaving at the same time as Jo’s car which has Katniss, Prim and Rue. The other girls left around one, technically according to Jo Prim and Rue could have gone with Annie but Katniss wanted to be in the same car as her little sister.

‘You know where you’re going right?’ he asks.

‘Yeah ; Foothills, the one nineteen and then the I-25,’ Jo says leaning against her Volvo, as Katniss and Prim fuss about how to pack all the bags in the trunk.

‘Good, don’t want you to get lost.’

* * *

 

The drive is fine, they put on a random country station for the hell of it, and one poor guy falls asleep in the back seat and gets a dick drawn on his face.  They make it to the motel at a little past eleven due to his speeding, and it’s too late to call for a team meeting but they don’t have to be on the fields until ten thirty, so after breakfast they’ll have one.

It’s late, and he really just wants a smoke ( A bad habit and something he doesn’t indulge in often but every night before a tournament he wants one.) so he’s sneaking out of the room when he catches barefoot and in yoga pants Annie Cresta holding ice padding towards her room.

He hasn’t seen Annie since rookie party, in which she was crowned queen in her absence because she was the only person actually competing (he assumes most of the rookies were too black out excited by Saturday morning layout practise where half of the team was barfing on the sidelines.) since she disapere with his shorts after the bathroom.

‘Cresta,’ he calls loudly, then realizing it’s close to midnight and dropping to lower tones. ‘I’ve got your clothes at my place.’

She rolls her eyes at the inotations he places on it. ‘Thanks. I’ve got your shorts in my bag. I’ll go get them.’

‘Nah,’ he shakes his head. It’s late and he’ll see her on the field tomorrow probably. ‘Give it to me later.’

‘Okay,’ she turns to the elevator, waiting for it to come.

‘You nervous?’

‘No. I mean it’s just a game.’

He wants to argue but the elevator door opens and she disappears from sight.


	4. stella b

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO: I forgot to do the notes last chapter!
> 
> But in case you ever didn't know the Rookie Party is very much a real thing and what happened to Annie did happen to me via my ex. Also, my good friend did decide to come to the party as a tree like Johanna.
> 
> Also! [ Thewildwilds](http://archiveofourown.org/users/thewildwilds/pseuds/thewildwilds) made this lovely fanart [here](http://thewildwilds.tumblr.com/post/110506738328/i-laughed-more-than-a-normal-person-should-at-this%22) so much love to her.

This is the first time they’ve ever really played together and it’s the first time Prim and Rue have ever played a game-not a scrimmage- in their life. They will either love it or loathe it.

They’re on the fourth field near the back, and they start at nine, which means they have to be cleated at eight, which breaks it down to they have to leave the motel at seven if they want to get any food and she has learnt that Madge does not like mornings.

‘Fuck you,’ she yells at Annie and Delly with a pillow over her head as they dress around six forty, pulling ion under armour shorts before the black ultimate shorts and the grey track pants. ‘Fuck you all it’s so fucking early.’

‘Gale would kill both of us,’ Delly says pulling her hair back into two French braids. ‘Get up bitch or we won’t be able to get coffee and then you really will kill us.’

Even coffee isn’t enough to get Madge out of bed until it’s exactly seven and she ends up looking like a complete mess, but she sits in the back seat of Annie’s car grumpily.  With the stop at Starbucks, Madge is more awake and they make it to the field at only seven forty-five.

The trip from the car to field is done in silence, and as soon as they find the field they claim the bench, throwing their bags there. Madge sits and drinks her coffee, as Delly begins to root in her bag for some discs, Annie goes for a jog around the field.

There is something brewing in her stomach, it could be fear-she hasn’t stepped on a field in years to play an actual game, she could mess this up, too much faith her own abilities that have rusted and only seem good in comparable to the slapdash team Johanna has assembled which only plays some non-competitive rec leagues.

But it feels more like excitement, as she rounds a corner keeping up an easy pace, feeling all the muscles in her legs strain and stretch after a night of sleep, playing small spoon to Madge as Delly got the pull out couch.

When she finishes the second lap, Johanna is there in her shorts and sports bra with a baseball cap on her head, it is incredibly hot in the morning, and it will only get hotter. Prim and Katniss both have single identical braids down their back in blonde and dark brown respectively. Katniss doesn’t look like she wants to be here, while Prim and Rue both look excited and nervous.

‘Okay guys, circle up.’  Johanna waits until they’re all in sort of a circle, it looks more like an oval but in Annie’s experience no ultimate team really know how to make a circle.  ‘We’re going to kick fucking ass. We don’t have a bye until after two games so we’re going to be fucking tired but so what? We are fucking going to smash their heads in yeah? So Delly start the stretches.’

Delly is a physiotherapist student, and she does yoga and dance class which means she is the only person with a strong working knowledge of how stretching works.  It’s the typical warm up, one she goes through by route memorization as she goes through plays in her head.

Jo, Madge and Katniss handler, with Jo being the most well rounded one. Madge alternatively throws hammers or left handed back hands. Katniss is decent generally but she specializes in hucks and running accuracy.

Delly, Prim, Rue and herself are cutting. Delly is good at getting open, having three years of playing experience under her belt and decent field sense. Prim cannot seem to recall what they’re forcing and generally will have to be in the cup when they play zone-she knows that Jo wants her after this tournament once she shows everyone why she is on the team without a tryout, to train Prim with reading the disc better. Rue is fast and quick and she seems to want to run for miles, which is her biggest advantage.

They can’t do a lot of advance places, just various stacks and zone defense instead of man.  Zone is the best way to keep the disc contained because individually not everyone is skilled enough to play man.

When Jo calls for Prim and Rue to start throwing at each other, she calls a meeting for the handlers and Delly and Annie.

‘So here’s the deal,’ Jo says speaking softly while watching the disc go all over the field and whoever was supposed to receive it trot off to get it, ‘Delly be there to bail. We’re going to throw as much as we possibly can to Annie. That’s the only way we can win.’

‘That’s a bad idea,’ Katniss says. ‘We can’t always throw it to her-that’s not fair.’

They all look at the younger girls, as Prim yells heads as an out of control backhand heads closer to the opposing team than Rue.

‘I think we might have to,’ Madge murmurs. ‘Can you catch hammers?’

‘I can catch anything,’  and it doesn’t feel like a boast.

‘But this is your first game isn’t it?’ Katniss asks. ‘You’re a rookie.’

She wants to roll her eyes, and tell the younger girl that there’s nothing in Ultimate Katniss has done, she hasn’t experienced or seen before but this is not the time.

‘Listen I am the fucking captain and I am telling you Brainless that you need to fucking throw to fucking Ghost Girl over here if you want to make these matches fucking short because I don’t know about you but I don’t think I can fucking run an hour and fucking half repeatedly with no fucking breaks because we have no fucking players,’ Johanna yells softly in an attempt to keep her voice down to not give the opposing team some sort of advantage.  ‘So just fucking listen and let’s fuck shit up okay?’

Katniss is quiet but there’s a storm on her face and Annie just hopes this goes not as horribly as it can.

Jo leaves to do the toss, and they all start throwing. Katniss and Madge toss together, talking softly.

‘Don’t worry about Katniss,’ Delly tells her brightly making a nice grab. ‘She’s not a really good team player-she’s better than Jo by like…maybe an inch or two. Madge and Peeta and Prim can usually get her to bend and think reasonably.’

‘What’s with her and Peeta?’  Annie asks curiously, faking a flick before sending a backhand.

Delly throws back her head and chuckles. ‘Oh god what isn’t? I’ll tell you on our bye because it is so fucking stupid.’

‘Sounds like my kind of romance.’

‘Don’t call it a romance,’ Delly warns. ‘She might try to kill you.’

‘Oh lord, she’s not a label girl?’ Annie asks lunging to the left to get a stray disc.

‘She doesn’t do feelings except she totally does and is just emotionally stunted and I say that in the most loving terms and because I’ve known the girl since I was sixteen. Peeta’s my cousin,’ Delly adds. ‘I spent the summers at their place.’

Annie doesn’t get to reply because Jo jogs back to them scowling.

‘We lost the tip, we’re on D first.’

‘Quick turnover then,’ Delly says looking at the team assembling on the other side for their own team meeting before the game. ‘Wow they’re tall.’

Annie glances over at the University of Florida women’s B team, jealous for a second that they have enough players to have a B team in the first place, but then more concerned about the height of the players. They seem on average five-seven, which means Rue, Prim, Madge and herself are at a severe disadvantage, it will matter less for Madge as she will -if they do their jobs correctly- not be fighting for discs and getting skied but for them it means that bids for the disc will severely lessen.

‘I don’t recognize any of them,’ Annie says. Enobaria and Cashmere drilled her on top female college players, and where the people she played Worlds with ended up and she doesn’t see anyone who looks vaguely familiar; but she wouldn’t trust her memory.

‘They might not be able to run,’ Rue says. ‘Center of gravity and stuff.’

Jo shrugs, ‘Don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. Let’s make this quick. Force is home, Prim get on the left side of whoever you’re marking. You want to face the bench. Rue ninety degree angles, cut hard they’ll fuck up. Madge for the love of god do not fucking throw a flick or I will shove this disc down your throat. Katniss let the cutters know if you’re playing deep hucks because if you don’t tell them, they won’t fucking run into the end zone. Delly don’t talk to the girl-you’re not here to make friends, you’re here to win. Annie don’t fuck up.’

The speech is short, brisk and spoken like a chipmunk on speed, but they all nod along, a semblance of solemnity dawns on them, making it feel more like war than a game on a Friday morning.

‘Okay, hands in.’

They huddle, elbows and shoulders connecting with seven hands over top of each other in various shades, from the pale white Delly, to the olive complexion of Katniss, to Johanna’s own tan and Rue’s darker skin. She can see the pink nail varnish of Madge’s hands on the spaces between finger gaps.

‘One we are the Ravens, two a little bit louder, three I still can’t here you, four more, more, more,’ Delly starts the chant in a whisper voice. As she repeats more people join in, and they get louder and louder until they are screaming.

‘One, two, three, four,’ the seven girls yell at the top of their lungs until they drop into a whisper,’ Fuck yeah.’

They line up on the end zone, with Katniss holding the disc for the pull.

‘Zone,’ Delly reminds them all. ‘Zone, so Prim, Rue you’re in the cup with me.’

The horn blasts, and hands are up in the air. Katniss winds up and the disc goes soaring.

Annie runs, setting up to play middle with Madge and Johanna, around midfield. Katniss stays back playing deep.

They weren’t expecting zone, which is fair. Zone is usually not played at the very beginning.  One of the handlers looks young; but youth doesn’t mean inexperience and she proves it with a nice hammer ready for the cutter trying to get past Jo.

Annie isn’t moving, because there is no one in her end of the field and she needs to be able to make a quick breakaway, so she can see the look of anger on Prim’s face that she was unable to keep the cup intact. She makes a reminder to tell Prim she did nothing wrong, she was forcing home, but the girl took the disc vertical and hammered it, a catch all fix for cup situations when no one’s very tall.

She can see the girl, red hair and a face that looks lupine make a bid for the disc, jumping trying to not exactly elbow Johanna in the face, but she’s not actively trying not to. Ultimate is supposed to be a non-contact support but they all know it’s a lie.

Johanna slaps the disc down from the sky and out of reach of the redhead onto the grass.

‘Turn!’ Annie screams, and she runs.

Jo grabs the disc, tapping it and passes to Madge to give them time for Delly and the cup to dissolve into some sort of horizontal stack. Madge passes to Katniss who passes to Jo.

Florida is playing man, which is horrible for them. It effectively shuts Prim out of receiving any discs because she is being dwarfed by a girl who looks high. There’s a girl at her tail who is keeping up pretty good with her as she cuts in and out and diagonally, trying to get an open space which would work if Prim or Rue actually cleared out.

‘MOVE’ she yells, trying to get them to give options.  There’s only so much ground the three handlers can make before they have to make a play and gain points.

Rue clears out and Prim runs straight to the end zone. It’s  better than nothing, and that leaves a nice wide open space for her to get into, and Delly sees her, ready to catch bail when Annie will need to dump the disc to get open.

Katniss throws and Prim tries, she really does. She’s looking up in the sky, hands out chasing the disc, but she’s not fast enough and she’s never laid out before, so the disc falls, ten feet from Florida’s end zone, resulting in a turn and Annie useless in an open space.

‘TURN!’ Delly yells, as the Florida player quickly resets and has the disc sent flying off to their end zone where Katniss and a player are fighting for the disc and Katniss loses.

Florida scores.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Prim says to Delly and Annie as they make the long walk back to the end zone. ‘I didn’t mean-‘

‘It’s okay,’ Annie cuts Prim off. ‘It happens. It’s not your fault.’

It isn’t Prim’s fault, she tried. No one can say she didn’t try to make a big but that was a bad play from Katniss.

‘I’m sorry,’

‘When we get back, we’ll work on laying out okay?’ Annie tells Prim kindly. ‘You and me we’ll do this so next time some hucks the disc, you’ll get it for sure.’

Annie doesn’t say anything when she reaches the line but it looks like Jo is already yelling at Katniss for what she did.

‘So what’s the plan?’ Madge asks.

‘Huck it,’ Jo says. ‘Get the point quickly. It’s to fifteen right? Half at seven? So let’s get the point back right now. Delly you and Prim stay in the middle-I might need you to swing. Rue, Tails get to the end zone as soon as possible.  When they do the pull get there. Don’t look back.’

‘Okay,’ Rue says while Annie nods.

This is a smarter play, Rue is faster than her, but her ability to catch isn’t the strongest. Having her there  deep will make them pull back, which means defense will be lighter on Delly and Prim so they have options.

‘Let’s kick ass.’

Rue takes off like a bullet and Annie runs to keep up. Rue’s closer to the end zone,  while Annie is more central. Delly and Prim cut in and out and vertically clearing while Madge backhands to Jo who gives a nice flick to Delly who neatly sends it back to Katniss giving them more time for Annie to set up.

The pressure moves off her and Rue as Florida seems to think that they’ll just out here to cherry pick.

And then Katniss hucks it fast and hard.

It’s not that the world slows, if anything everything feels amplified, her heart pounding and how aware of the grass, the wind and the disc she is.  It’ll overshoot her a bit, but she’ll get there before Rue so she looks over her shoulder and her mark is behind-too slow for the switch up maybe-but she’s running and she leans, the disc firmly in her palm as she falls.

Annie moves instinctively, twisting into a kneeling pose she sends the disc to Rue, alone in the end zone.

Point, them.

* * *

 

> wet shirt bitches play the disc

* * *

 

Finnick doesn’t see any of the women’s games because their bye was in the morning, and they won’t have a bye until three which is when the women are done.

But the seven of them come during the match against UCLA and they generally don’t look happy. Well the smaller ones, Rue looks ecstatic, Prim looks tired. Katniss looks mad, rather than a general apathy. Madge and Delly seem slightly winded. Annie has grass stains all over her white jersey.

He’s on the sidelines for this point, so he goes and asks Jo what’s going on.

‘Don’t ask Odair,’ she tells him, flopping to the ground. ‘Don’t fucking ask.’

‘Team not bondin’ sweetheart?’ Haymitch drawls, from the fabric camp chair he’s set up.  He has a megaphone on his lap.

‘Don’t sweetheart me old man,’ Jo bites back. ‘I’m going to kill that girl.’

‘Cresta?’ Finn asks, his attention diverted from Hawthorne laying out in the end zone and nearly getting squashed by a UCLA player who doesn’t stop in time. ‘I’ll join.’

Jo and Haymitch both look at him.

‘What the hell is with both of you and wanting to kill each other?’ Johanna mutters.

‘Sexual tension,’ Haymitch advises. Both Johanna and Finnick scowl at the man with the white cloth hat.

‘No, Brainless.’  Johanna says, pulling herself up to watch the game.  He can see Annie Cresta has made her way over to the opposite side lines where she’s laughing with Gloss.  ‘She won’t listen to the plays we’re calling and that fucking-‘

‘Did it cost you the game?’ Haymitch asks.

Johanna sighs angrily, ‘Not exactly. We lost to Florida B, but we won against Oklahoma- they really suck. Most of them are first years, we were calling travels or picks all the time.’

He shudders, that is the worst type of game, the one where every play is interrupted because people can’t play by the rules. Ultimate is self-referred so there can be arguments over calls.

‘What’s your schedule like?’ he asks as mini-Hawthorne lays out successfully for the disc, but doesn’t quite make into the end zone. Mini-Hawthorne throws a quick pop pass to Hawthorne Proper and they get the point. 

‘Mellark, Smith, Lee, Thom, Odair, Hawthorne, Caius’ Haymitch lists, interrupting them. ‘You’re up.’

‘Which Hawthorne?’ Jo asks as she watches the brothers, both tall and dark play rock paper scissors to see who can play the point.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ Haymitch says from his camp seat. ‘If we do this right Hawthorne will captain in four years so he’s got to get his sense up.’

‘By running him ragged?’

‘We got plenty of subs,’ Haymitch points out. Johanna’s nostrils flare.  They do have a stacked team, and they don’t have to worry about Madge’s knee giving out or Primrose dying from an asthma attack.

* * *

 

It’s almost past six when the Mamabirds, victorious is the round robin make it back to the motel.  The general plan is to shower than get dinner, and as it always seems to be, he sees the women’s team dressed and showered already heading out of the motel to find dinner.

Hawthorne stops to kiss Madge, and that brings the entire group to slowdown.  He can see Annie Cresta her hair up in an elegant knot and a pretty dress looking decidedly out of place in the group of girls wearing jeans and oversized sweaters, juggling her key like she wants to leave.

‘How did it go?’ Hawthorne asks.

Madge makes a face of tired disgust, ‘We won two games.’ That puts them in the bottom bracket of the round robin and tomorrow when they get split into division one and division two, they’ll be playing in the fields ten minutes away.

‘But you guys were playing no subs,’ Gale reminds them. ‘That’s really good.’

The looks exchanged between them all make it very clear that no one is happy with what happened. A

‘Jo,’ Annie speaks up from the front. ‘We have to make our reservations.’

They all watch as Annie in her pink dress walk out of the sliding door without looking back.

‘What’s up with her?’ Gale asks.

There is another round of dark looks between Johanna, Delly and Madge while Katniss looks pointedly at the floor.

‘She’s hungry,’ Delly says finally. ‘We should go.’

* * *

 

She’s very glad that Madge and Delly are in her car because she is ninety-seven percent sure  she would crash the car if Katniss was in it.

They could have won at least two more of the damn games if Katniss threw to her. But for some reason she doesn’t trust her, and consistently throws to anyone else.

‘Katniss is just bad with people,’ Madge says as they drive to the restaurant, correctly interpreting the stormy silence radiating off Annie as a tsunami of rage.

‘She’s bad at ultimate,’ it slips out before she can stop it.

‘She had a hard life. It’s not…it’s her fault yeah but it’s not.’

‘That doesn’t fucking excuse her,’ Annie explodes quietly. ‘I don’t give a fuck about her home life. That doesn’t matter on the field. What matters is the fucking team needs me more than I need it and I’m sorry if that offends you but we are starting in the bottom of division two where the most we can hope is to place thirteen out of sixteen teams because of a half decent handler who won’t fucking throw.’

‘She’s good friends with Finn,’ Madge says, and Annie should feel ashamed or embarrassed. Madge is Katniss’s best friend and she is bad mouthing her in front of her. ‘And Finn might have…you know a few beers in bitched about you so like…there’s that.’

Her grip on the steering wheel tightens and she doesn’t know if she wants to laugh, scream or cry. She didn’t think that he would talk about her, and even if he did, she never thought it would affect the team. She never told anyone about her playing history, Johanna knows from Cashmere and she assumes Delly and Madge can see she’s a very experienced player.

‘I have played on Team America for Worlds for four years in a row, before I took a break to focus on school,’ she tells the car through gritted teeth. It’s not exactly the truth but it’s close enough. ‘I thought that there would be some common sense to throw to a person open.’

‘Katniss doesn’t always have…common sense,’ Delly starts awkwardly. ‘She’s just…not rude but-‘

‘It doesn’t matter what she is,’ Annie says finding an open spot. ‘We could have won two games but she didn’t throw to me and so we’re at the bottom.’

* * *

 

It’s eighty-thirty and everyone is fed and the women’s team has made their way into his hotel room, along with the rest of the team.

Haymitch has just given everyone their stats, and a rundown of the things needed to improve, before he excuses himself. He’s their coach, and pushing forty-five; it would be weird for everyone if he stayed and hung out when there is a seventeen year (Rue, who turns eighteen in December) in the room.

It’s always interesting to see how the rookies integrate themselves when they meet the men’s team in things such as tournaments. The blonde with the braid, Prim, has no problem walking to the miniature Hawthorne, cozying up beside him. He doesn’t miss the way Katniss’s eyebrows narrow that will be interesting. Rue, the other young rookie girl is seemly close with Prim because she follows her, perching on the edge of the mattress which already has about six boys with two six packs of beer on it.

Madge of course has no problem dropping into Hawthorne’s lap like she belongs there; after three years he supposes she does. Delly sits beside her cousin and Katniss hovers near Peeta as well. He’s surprised that Gloss grins at Annie and moves over so she can lean into him, pulling her hair.

‘Well, ladies, gentlemen,’ he starts the first day or a tournament speech. ‘We have played fucking hard today, with big bids, some fucking awesome layouts and good spirit. And for that we salute you.’ He raises his water bottle. He doesn’t drink at tournaments, not when they can place.  He can’t stop the team from drinking-well the underage ones he can, by putting the fear of god in them if they get caught and get kicked out of the tournament.

‘And to celebrate making it, we will have the inaugural game of werewolf.’

Hawthorne groans, Madge flicks him. 

Werewolf on the first night of a tournament is something he is convinced was brought to Worlds by the Roberts twins.

‘Gloss, as the eldest, will be the moderator. ‘Gloss waves his hand. ‘How many people know how to play?’ All the returning players have their hand up, as well as Annie. Cashmere must have taught her to play before the tournament, pity she couldn’t have taught how to throw the disc.

‘Alright,’ Gloss says taking center stage with a type of charisma that just screams leader. ‘Not too shabby. Now, there are thirty six people playing, which means we have twelve werewolves, and just so you know the werewolves are trying to kill us. But we also have a few love birds in our midst, in fact we have three pairs, and everyone knows that if a lover dies in the night killed by the werewolf, than their partner dies as well. But oh wait Gloss-isn’t there anyone who can help us fight the werewolves? You’re right, we have the witch who can save one person the entire game, and we have the seer who each night after the werewolves have gone to bed, can see the piece of paper I’m about to give out.’ Gloss reaches into his back pocket and begins to go around the circle handing out cards.

 ‘So now the rules, you’re going to listen to me at all time, and you’re not ever going to show anyone your card. You need to be silent, and people can lie but the seer cannot. People move into a circle, make my life easier. Werewolves can only kill someone if it’s a unanimous decision. Villagers, which is everyone here, each time it is day you have to kill someone because you want the werewolves out. Villagers win if all the werewolves are dead; werewolves win if there is one of you still alive. Villagers you can’t not kill someone each morning and it has to be unanimous. So all the cards are out look at them now.’

The well-worn index card in Finnick’s hand has in what he assumes is fourteen year old Cashmere’s handwriting due to the “o” being shaped in a heart, and with purple glitter ink written _werewolf_.  He has to fight to hide a smirk; he always thought it suited him the most.

Gloss is the middle of the circle, ‘Heads down, I’m going to pick the lovers. If I see you peeking, you get kicked out of the room and have to hang out with Haymitch for the rest of the night.’

‘That feels more like a reward than anything,’ Johanna mutters under her breathe. 

‘I heard that Mason, if you want to go hang out with him go right ahead.’

He would bet everything he owns that Johanna is giving Gloss the finger right now but his head is down and his eyes are shut and he tries to hear Gloss walk leisurely around the circle without a pace, when he’s back in the center Gloss tells the people he knocked on the head to look up quietly and without making much noise, there’s a moment’s pause before Gloss tells everyone heads down, and he goes around the circle again. The process repeats until it comes to the third group in which during the walk around Gloss raps him with his knuckles lightly. He’s part of the third group of lovers, interesting; it feels like eternity for Gloss to get back to the center.

‘Okay third lovers eyes up.’

He tries not to move or jostle the bed as he looks around the circle, trying to gage who his life is tied to for the next hour or so. It takes him awhile but he notices Annie Cresta blinking trying not to jostle the mattress she’s perched on.

They both glare at each other and she sticks out her tongue, making a face while Gloss rolls his eyes in the center of the circle. He returns the gestures.

‘All right,’ Gloss says. ‘Heads down, eyes closed because it’s night in the village and the werewolves are waking up.’

Finnick opens his eyes again, and the werewolves include Primrose, Gale, Delly, Peeta and Rue as well as Marvel and Cato and a few other male rookies he doesn’t know fully by name.

Right off the bat, there’s discord with the pointing and the shaking their heads until they all agree that Thresh is the first to be killed.

‘Now the werewolves have gone back to sleep and the seer has woken up,’  he can hear every sock footed step that Gloss makes as he crosses from the circle in a lazy circle taking someone’s paper and giving it to someone else before making the circle before. ‘And now the witch has woken up, and now it is day and everyone wakes up.’

People begin to blink as they all focus on Gloss, ‘There has been a death,’ he tells the room. ‘Thresh has been killed by the werewolves. And now you need to find one.’

‘I heard something,’ Annie is the first person to talk, surprising everyone from the generally awkward silence at the beginning of each game of Werewolf, ‘over in that direction.’ She points towards the corner where Prim, Rue and the miniature Hawthorne are located. ‘So maybe there?’

He wants to scream, of course she has to speak and draw immediate suspicious to everything. Of course.

The villagers kill miniature Hawthorne. They also end up killing Katniss, who was the witch and a lover. Miniature Hawthorne was a villager.

‘Now,’ Gloss says showing everyone Katniss’s index card, ‘No one can be saved.’

* * *

 

The thing about Werewolf is that it takes what feels like forever, and somehow by the skin of her teeth she is still alive. She’s no one in particular, just a villager but she happens to be one of the lovers connected to Finnick and she has no clue how they’ve managed to last as Madge (a Werewolf) was just killed and they’re only down to thirteen people,  with one set of lovers left, and  three werewolves and no witch because her smart mouth.

Johanna who is still alive is the one leading the charge against Finnick and she really doesn’t know what to say but she has to save him somehow.

‘Do you really think,’ she says leaning forward to look at Jo from across the circle, ‘that he could be someone important and we wouldn’t already know?’

Finnick gives her the finger. She rolls her eyes, but he helps make her point.

‘Well how about you then?’ Johanna asks, narrowing her eyes and cocking her head. Madge beside her who since her death has taken to trying to braid the short wisps of hair over his ears sigh angrily at the disturbance to her braid. ‘You’re always quick to talk, and you’re still alive.’

Honestly, Johanna is so paranoid in this game that has gone on for over two hours, because of huge debates and she is always vocal because she has never liked the idea of losing or dying in Werewolf because she once lost a game to Cashmere and Gloss and had to wear a yellow garbage bag over her dress that Cashmere gave a little penis and nipples for an entire day.

There’s a punishment coming she knows it.

‘Because I’m a fucking villager,’ she says. ‘And I don’t want the Werewolves to win so why don’t we actually try to kill a Werewolf not someone useless.’

‘Hey!’ Finnick objects.

‘Oh shut up I’m trying to save your life,’ she tells him.

‘And why are you doing that?’ Gale asks, ‘Because you’ll die if he dies?’

‘Oh my god,’ she doesn’t know if Finnick is looking at her because she’s busy staring at Gale Hawthorne. ‘What part of trying to win the fucking game do you not understand?’

‘Language Annie,’ Hawthorne says, ‘We’ve got virgin ears here.’

She want to laugh, she saw those Facebook pictures of Primrose and whatshisname from Rookie party Rue put up that night before they were mysteriously taken off once the hangover set in.

‘You know what we could do,’ Johanna says easily. ‘Just kill Annie and if Finnick is her lover than we got rid of him too.’

‘What why the hell are you trying to kill me?’ she argues, but she’s lost in some nods and Gloss asks for confirmation while she tries to argue not to kill her. Finnick doesn’t say anything.

‘And Annie is dead,’ Gloss says as she hands over the index card. ‘And she was as she told you a villager, good job guys.  ‘But she was also a lover, so her lover dies too.’

Gloss reaches for Finnick’s index card and there’s a self-sabotaging look on Hawthorne’s face.  ‘And Finn was a Werewolf, so congrats guys. You have now eleven people total, with seven werewolves still around, the werewolves have won.’

‘You were a werewolf?’ Annie yells over the noise. Gale and Peeta as well as Gloss begin to snicker. ‘Fuck you, I trusted you. I want a divorce.’

‘Oh get over yourself,’ he tells her dryly. ‘You’re the reason I’m dead.’

No one stops her from hurling the pillow used to cushion Peeta’s back at Finnick’s face.

* * *

 

He doesn’t remember games which as captain is more than likely a bad habit. But he remembers points, so when Peeta says that they won against Arizona- fifteen to twelve- he has to nod.

He doesn’t actually know how they won, but he knows there was a lovely play where he had to huck a hammer-it came by accident and to his blind spot because he was stall eight and Arizona was marking incredibly tight.

Marvel was the only one open and he hates catching hammers, because a vertical disc is hard to catch and at the speeds he throws at makes it a dangerous thing to catch. There are a lot of broken fingers and hands in ultimate.

He thinks it’s more of a coping method to be quite honest, to keep him focused on the games ahead if he only remembers points he’ll never get a big head.

Either way they only lose once when Thresh gets hit hard by someone he’s marking a bit too close for comfort and the high release backhand hits him in the temple and he’s down like a bag of bricks.  Thresh wants to still play, but he can barely stand and Gloss has to take him to the hospital. They play a rookie for the rest of the game, and then afterwards they regroup.

The morale was badly shaken, and they can’t get their flow back properly for the rest of the day and the fact that they can’t hang out with the girls all the way in the consolation field; it should be nothing for the team but it does gnaw on you the fact you’re missing loud and boisterous cheers on the sidelines, plus Gale is always more likely to lay out if Madge is there.

Peeta too, though as a handler he has less opportunities to lay out, but he’ll make the big plays he won’t usually do if Katniss is around.

* * *

 

They lose every game.

‘I want to quit,’ she tells Grandma Mags, leaning against the back of the motel unable to bring herself to enter, and shower. Her cleats, as well as Delly and Madge’s are in her trunk with air fresheners’ stuffed in the toes to try to keep the scent down. ‘I hate this, this is horrible.’

 _‘Why?_ ’ Her grandmother’s voice is distorted and sounds like she’s speaking into a tin. A stroke garbles her language as well as the strong Cajun French she’s never been able to lose though she’s been out of New Orleans for the better part of a quarter of a century.

‘We lost, every time.’ There is a collection of cigarette butts on the pavement in front of her, some of them trodden on, others just flicked and left. ‘Every single time we lost and I could have won them-all of the throws were easy to catch and I just-we could have won and god.’

‘ _Don’t take His name in vain_ ,’ Grandma Mags chides. While her daughter may have turned away from the Church, she is still a devoted Catholic, going to Mass every week.

‘Sorry,’ Annie mumbles. ‘It’s so frustrating. I don’t want to do this anymore.’

 _‘Izzit frustr’ting because dis is tha firs’ time you have ta work for it?’_ Mags asks.  _‘Or because they dunno who you are an’ dunno trea’ you like you’re use ta?’_

‘Because the one girl who is somehow in charge because she’s got her sister and her best friend on the team doesn’t know what she’s doing but she’s not helping.’

Her grandmother gives her a Bible verse, and bids her good night. It is late in Florida and she needs to sleep for her trip to the casino tomorrow.

Eventually she has to go shower and get out of her shorts and her whites. She knows this, but she also gets the motel’s horrible wi-fi in this one spot beside the dumpsters and the back door used for the staff where she can see her car and there’s this thought, a horrible traitorous thought that can worm it’s way into the forefront of her brain is that she could leave.

She could go and drive and go back to Colorado and her apartment and never look back because it’s not like there’s anything immensely important in her motel room (her lipstick, hair straightener, tooth brush and her astronomy notes) and it’s not like Delly and Madge can’t find a way home.

She could leave.

There’s noise suddenly, and she jolts back out of sight. She’s crouching behind the dumpster trying to figure out why she’s so jumpy. It’s not like there’s anything to be ashamed about.

There are male voices, loud and joyful and they all head around to the front entrance of the motel. She can recognize the more sarcastic males as Gale and Cato, and when she hears Haymitch barking at them all to shut up and shower she summarises the men’s team is back.

‘Fuck,’ she says, letting her head hit the back of the wall. There’s a sound, something hitting the pavement and her eyes open to see Finnick Odair a black Mamabirds baseball cap on backwards and his whites on with his green sports bag over his shoulders staring at her in shock.

‘You smoke?’ she asks at the same time he says ‘You’re here.’

It’s comical how they stare.

‘Yeah,’ Finnick tells her, bending down to pick up the lighter he dropped. ‘I do. Do you?’

She wonders if she says yes, if he’ll offer her a cigarette. Much more likely he’ll laugh in her face and not offer her any because that’s how her day’s been going.

‘No,’ she says.

‘Do you mind?’

She shakes her head and he lights up.

‘I don’t do it often,’ he tells her conversationally, sitting down on the curb. ‘Just when I’m stressed.’

‘What happened?’

‘Thresh got hit. Not bad really, at least according to Gloss but it’s still a hospital trip,’ Finnick exhales.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘He’ll live. It’s just shitty.’

They’re silent again. It’s not a bad silence, or an awkward one. It’s the type of silence that happens when two people are exhausted mentally or emotionally and they don’t need to talk about what is exhausting them, but they’re glad someone is here.

‘How did you do?’ Finnick asks, reaching the end of his cigarette and flicking the butt to the asphalt.

‘We lost,’ she tells him. ‘Every game. It sucks.’

He shrugs, ‘Was it fun?’

‘No.’

His shoulders move as if he’s trying not to laugh as he moves back to sit beside her, ‘Have you never lost at anything before?’

‘Loads of times,’ she tells him hotly. She’s lost games before, sometime several times in a row. But this is a different type of losing. It’s not a good game played and lost, this is a bad game played and lost and it’s a bad game played because of one person. ‘But this is different. I just feel so useless or helpless. We could have won and we didn’t and I just-‘ she stops herself.

He doesn’t care nor does he need to know about the issues on the women’s team.  Besides it’s petty.

‘What are you doing Monday?’ he asks her.

‘What?’

‘What are you doing Monday?’

‘I’ve got class until five then probably homework. I’m on campus all day really.’

‘Meet me in my office at six? We’ll work something out so you don’t feel helpless on the field again,’ he suggests, looking straight ahead at the butt of the cigarette he flicked away.

He doesn’t have to do this. She says yes anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, and I know I just stumbled into something a tad bit controversial so maybe tell me how you feel by kudos and comments and I hope I haven't pissed you all off from next week which should be by all accounts getting into the real meaty chapters. 
> 
> Much love V


	5. big fish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I apparently am not so controversial? The consensis from the last chapter is that no one thought Katniss was out of character with Annie which I love because that means I feel more safe to go with my story and not get so many hate messages.
> 
> Also if you tolerate my writing than you should read [THE best Soul Mate AU slash Annie's Games fic out there.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2220870/chapters/4870947) Trust me you do not want to miss a good story by an amazing writer where Annie in her own games is not delegated to a secondary character to boost Finnick's badass-ness.
> 
> Check it out!

On Monday she has to climb up seven flights of stairs before she can get to his office.  She doesn’t want to do this; she doesn’t know how Finnick could help because the entire problem is how the team is run. 

She doesn’t need to go into the chemistry building as a software engineer, so she gets turned around but eventually she finds the room marked Grad Students and knocks.  

‘Come in,’ she hears from within, and she pushes the door open. There are several other desks, but Finnick is the only one in the room.  She knows automatically which desk is his, even with him at the coffee maker. There’s a gym bag under the fourth desk on the left side, as well as a computer and a small white board.

‘Hi,’ she says.

‘Hey,’ he smiles motioning to the coffee maker. ‘Want some?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

It’s awkward. They haven’t really talked since Saturday night by the dumpsters. Sunday the Mamabirds were in the finals at four and even though she wanted to go home and sleep Delly and Madge wanted to watch the game.

‘What do you have in your coffee?’ Finnick asks.

She shakes her head, ‘Nothing. I take it black.’

He laughs, ‘You’re so much more hard core than me.’   She rolls her eyes and then stares as there are so many sugar packets torn and put in his coffee.

‘You’re going to get diabetes,’ she tells him as she takes the mug offered to him. ‘So what’s the plan Cap?’

He gives her a sheepish smirk, ‘I thought we could watch some old games-old Nats and stuff so you can get better at reading the field and next time you want get so flustered.’

‘Flustered?’ she asks. ‘I wasn’t flustered-who told you that?’

He hesitates, and just pulls his neighbour’s wheelie chair to his desk. ‘Come on, let’s watch.  Like I was horrible when I started playing, I got so crazy that I…I hammer it and I didn’t know how to hammer so it was just a complete fuck up. So it’s all good.’

She doesn’t sit down, instead she watches Finnick who seems to have his ears turn red while he loads up past games.  Who would have told him she was flustered? That wasn’t what she was like on the field-angry maybe but not flustered, never flustered in the field.

‘Are you friends with Katniss?’

It’s the only one who makes sense, Johanna knows and Delly and Madge do to-Rue and Primrose are too young for Finnick to actually know or talk to; Katniss doesn’t like her either.

The way he doesn’t answer tells her everything.

‘You talk to her about me?’ she asks, and there’s this sense of betrayal that surprises her. It’s a dull ache, like stubbing your toe on the coffee table and it just surprises you even though you saw it. Why wouldn’t he talk about her? He’s trying to help the women’s team and she’s making his life difficult and he would complain about it.

‘So here’s the Worlds Men’s from  2011,’ he says pressing play. ‘Italy verse Japan.’

She needs to stop this right now. She should have stopped this a month ago, but it was fun. It was fun making Finnick a joke, that he’s so stupid to not realize she’s pulling the wool over his eyes; but somehow it’s not a joke. It’s Katniss refusing to think she is a good player, it is Finnick telling everyone she can’t play.

‘I played before,’ she says and his head jerks up. ‘That’s how I met Cashmere and Enobaria and Gloss.’

Finnick tries to talk, but she doesn’t let him. She leans over the keyboard, exits out of the game and gets the past roster lists for the Women’s World Juniors team up, from eight year ago.

‘Look,’ she points, and on the list at the beginning due to alphabetical order, _Annie Cresta age fourteen_  is listed, and below her there is _Enobaria Davis age seventeen_ and _Cashmere Roberts age sixteen_ is at the very bottom. She clicks to the next year, and the year after that and the year after that. At the very top there is always Annie Cresta.

Finnick doesn’t say anything.

‘I know how to play,’ she tells him. ‘And I am good. I was good and I was…I just…’she doesn’t know what to say.

He doesn’t say anything either.

She clicks on a highlight reel link, and they watch as number six throws a long huck that she chases down and lays out in the endzone. They watch seventeen year old Annie  cutting straight at her handler, daring and then cutting straight back getting an open space that no one else saw, and catching the disc before sending it to another handler.

They watch her win.

* * *

 

Primrose Everdeen is in school for nursing. She’s been unofficially with the boy from high school Rory who is also at the University of Colorado in mechanical engineering.

She and Rory never liked each other in high school, but they grew up in the same building and Mrs. Hawthorne was a surrogate baby-sitter and pseudo mother when her own mother was unable to get out of bed, strung out on grief at first, than a white powder that made her forget a husband who died too young in a freak accident on the work place, and now Violet Everdeen is in the best facility Katniss and her can afford with summer jobs at the YCMA camps, and Katniss working part time at Starbucks and Prim doing tours around campus.

She has no interest in ultimate but Katniss wants her to play -some sort of sister bonding.  And so she did, and she did meet Rue, her certified best friend from Chicago and she did sort of make out with Rory Hawthorne.

After Katniss and Gale had a huge blow up-Katniss might have cheated on Gale with Peeta at the winter formal but Gale doesn’t like dances and besides they weren’t actually together-she avoided Rory like the plague which was fine because he was going through girls like tissues.

And somehow they ended up more or less unofficially together.

So maybe ultimate isn’t that bad, but still she’s in soccer shorts and a tank top wearing cleats she bought from the thrift store looking at Annie Cresta confused.

‘So what is going to happen?’ she asks.

‘We’re just going to get you better at chasing discs,’ Annie tells her.  She likes Annie, she’s small and she always wears dresses and her hair is always immaculate. She also never yelled at her at the tournament when she messed up-even Madge did that.

‘How are you going to do that?’  She knows Annie is a good player, she and Rue were looking up previous Worlds games, and she saw Annie there. A smaller Annie, but it’s still Annie with a long pony tail appearing and disappearing wherever the disc is and wherever she is needed. She and Rue couldn’t figure out why Annie wouldn’t tell anyone why she’s that good; there was a theory that she’s hiding from the mafia for some reason.

‘The way my parents did when I was kid,’ she tells her. ‘I’m just going to throw discs blindly, and you need to chase them and try to catch them. This will making catching discs a lot easier too.’

‘Your parents did this?’

‘Yeah, they played back in the eighties and nineties in Boston,’ Annie tells her. ‘I grew up playing, and I’m-well I was- one of the best at reading the field. And I only got that because of this, so we’re going to do this.’

‘Will it help?’

Annie shrugs, ‘It can’t hurt. And I don’t know if you’re going to keep up playing or anything but I promised Jo I’d do that.’

‘Do you do that often?’ Prim asks, as she gets towards the white line where Annie indicated she should start from. ‘Make promises you’ll do stuff you don’t want to?’

Annie laughs, ‘C’mon, let’s see you catch this.’

She throws, and Prim runs. She doesn’t catch. They repeat.

Annie is here on a two hour break between classes and all Prim wants is to catch a disc before she has to go, but it’s so hard.

Annie will throw long hucks that make her legs burn and her lungs gasp because physical education only was mandatory in grade nine and that’s her last time before she had to run.  She’ll throw hammers that will go anywhere, and flicks that are ankle biters.

‘I can’t do this,’ she says  sitting on the grass. ‘I can’t.’

‘You can,’ Annie says. ‘I’m not a handler so my throws are shit but you’re getting better.’

‘Why can’t you just throw hucks?’ Prim asks. ‘Or just something until I master one?’

‘It won’t work in a game,’ Annie tells her. ‘If you want me to I will, but it won’t work in a game because no one unless they’re Madge who can only throw hammers-throws the same thing repeatedly.’

She sighs. ‘Keep it mixed then.’

‘You’ll get it, you know,’ Annie encourages her. ‘It’s not easy but you’re actually doing something like this so you’re a step up.’

‘You do this,’ she says. She’s really sure that Annie probably spent hours chasing discs.

‘Well yeah, but it’s different. I grew up in an ultimate family. It’s part of the culture, and you didn’t grow up in it. For someone who had no background you’re doing good.’

‘It doesn’t _feel_ like I’m doing good.’

‘That’s why we’re doing this,’ Annie says, getting ready to throw again. ‘So when we go to that tournament end of October, you will be amazing and catch everything.’

‘You’re exaggerating,’ Prim says getting up and getting ready to run.

‘A bit,’ Annie agrees. ‘But you’re going to get this one.’

She does.

* * *

 

He hasn’t talked to Annie since Monday not since they sat in his office watching old World games;  it’s a weird feeling. She lied to him but she didn’t because he never asked because he never thought how they possibly met.

All of Cashmere’s and Enobaria’s friends are ultimate players-he doesn’t think they don’t know anyone who doesn’t play ultimate and Gloss knows her.

He has never felt more stupid.

‘So,’ Gloss says when he comes home and gets a beer from the fridge. ‘You still haven’t talked to Tails?’

‘It’s not like we talk a lot anyway,’ he says not looking up from his book on the couch. ‘I don’t know why it’s a big deal.’

‘Well…’Gloss starts and then stops and then tries to start again. ‘She’s a world class ultimate player who was pretending that she didn’t know how to play because you pissed her off and let you waste your time. I think that deserves at least some sort of form of communication.’

‘Not really,’ Finnick flips the page, moving his feet to the coffee table he spent a morning trying to find the last screw thing from Ikea before giving up and calling it made thus leaving it slightly off kilter. ‘Who the fuck does that? She’s insane.’

Gloss shrugs, sitting down on the opposite of the couch. ‘She’s cute.’

‘Dude, seriously?’

Gloss laughs, ‘She’s like a kid sister to me. And that’s why you should talk to her.’

‘You need to explain this to me because I do not understand.’

Gloss sighs, ‘Annie is a little shit.’

‘Again, you need to use your words,’ Finnick says. Engineers are never good at communication, Gloss himself isn’t the best with words when dealing with feelings. He has to have his twin sister translate for him more times than he can remember, it’s also how he’s currently single. He said his ex-girlfriend reminded him of a bear, trying to tell her that she was such a strong woman and it ended up with a drink in his face.

‘But she’s a good person-she just…’

‘I really don’t care,’ Finnick says slamming his book shut.

* * *

 

He’s about three-fourths of the way done his Avalon mystery book when Gloss knocks on the door.

‘Hey,’ his roommate says, sticking his head inside. ‘You up to toss tonight?’

‘What?’

‘Cash called me-they’re thinking of playing a quick scrimmage tonight against some of the lawyers Baria works with.’

‘Why?’ he’s going to go of course, he never turns down a chance to play.

‘Who knows? Maybe they’re drunk, maybe they think ultimate is easy. I don’t know, does it matter?’

‘Nah, give me five.’

* * *

 

It’s a soccer field near the hospital, and they’re allowed to park in the hospital parking as long as they put the disc on the dashboard. It’s the field where they played during the summer leagues and Enobaria drives there with practise ease.

She’s wearing her old shorts, bright red and she has a white jersey that says _Tails_ on it, just like Cashmere’s has _Tits_ and Enobaria has _Teeth_ written on the back. It’s the joke jerseys they made for themselves a few years back when seventeen was the last time she was on the field laughing when she saw them at tournament, excited to join them in Worlds and cancer existed to people who weren’t her mother.

‘Who’s the team?’ she asks, sitting on the grass on the old soccer field lit up by car headlights and dying stadium lights lacing up her cleats.

‘You, me, Cash,’ Enobaria says. ‘Gloss, Finn. I called Haymitch and Lyme said she’d come, plus she’s bringing Brutus and Wiress doesn’t know if she can come but Beetee said he’ll be there.’

‘Wiress?’ Annie repeats. Wiress was once the coach for the Women’s World team before her attack, and a brilliant strategist. She likes the tall, pale woman and she tries to go and visit every few weeks and bake cookies with her. Wiress reminds her a lot of her grandma.

‘We’re ringers,’ Cashmere says in a low whistle. ‘I mean sure, half the team is on the other side of forty but still.’

‘Have the lawyers ever actually played?’ Brutus, tall and dark and the current coach of the World Juniors boys team, as well as one of the biggest builders for the youth program of ultimate in the United States asks, his own sports bag over his shoulders.

He easily hugs Cashmere and trades a hello nod to Enobaria who doesn’t like human contact.  She only knows Brutus by reputation and she doubts he knows of her. They trained the boys and girls Worlds team separately, so they could keep any relationship between the team away from the game.

‘Annie,’ she says hand outstretched. ‘I’m a cutter.’

‘Nice to meet you,’ he says shaking her hand firmly. ‘I’m a handler.’

‘I’ve heard a lot about you,’ Annie says trying to make conversation. ‘Gloss said you made him a million times better.’

Brutus smiles and there’s a tooth missing but its kind. ‘Wasn’t that hard, Blondie was a little shit who kept on scoobering. Still does for the matter of fact.’

‘Hey!’ Gloss says loudly, dropping his bag on the grass. She laughs and the tension is broken.  The others have begun to arrive and they all need to sort themselves out.

They have four cutters (herself, Enobaria, Lyme and Beetee) and five handlers (Finnick, Cashmere, Gloss, Haymitch and Brutus) and they’re playing against a bunch of lawyers and legal assistants and their spouses.

For the first point, Haymitch and Brutus decide to sit off. They win the flip so they’re playing offense first.

‘Hey,’ she says to Finnick. ‘How are you?’

If he ignores her, she knows that she might as well quit the team right now. It’s obvious he has more sway than she thought and she never saw ultimate as a clique but she was always in the in crowd.

‘Good,’  he says gruffly, reading the line. ‘You?’

She shrugs, ‘When we’re done do you think we can grab a drink or something? I think we need to talk.’

‘About what?’ he asks, as they wait for the pull.

‘You know,’ the disc falls short, barely at mid field and they have to run and their conversation is cut short.

It takes a bit to fall into a pattern that works for them all. Enobaria likes to cut aggressively, while Lyme likes to play close to the handlers, acting more as a swing. Beetee takes the conventional cuts, but he runs like he’s always the one who’ll always get the disc.  She just gets open.

This is the way she likes to play.

She sees the openings, and she takes them. She lays out, grass stain on her whites and rolls before throwing.

They cycle through, losing two points but keeping the pace and it’s awhile until both Finnick and her are off at the same time.

‘So drinks after?’ she asks, watching as Lyme gets a nice hand block.

‘Gloss drove me, so I don’t have a car.’

She nods, and remembers that she didn’t drive here either. ‘Okay then is there some time you’re free? I really think I need to…apologize or explain or-‘

‘Why?’

She falters, because it’s obvious why she has to apologise. She lied to him, that’s wrong and she has to say sorry so things can go back to-well there’s nothing to go back to. They started on a lie and once you start on a lie everything just unravels from there.

‘Because we’re friends,’ she tries.

Finnick laughs, and it’s cold and angry. ‘We were never friends.’

‘We could be.’

Enobaria catches the disc in the end zone and Finnick is on the field instantly for the next point.

* * *

 

The thing about being in your final year means that there is actually no time to do anything, and you end up spending so much time in the library even for geography.  It also means you also spend a very large amount of time plotting the murder of someone who sits behind you tapping their pen in an offbeat rhythm breaking concentration.

Johanna Mason is about to be the first person to go to jail for murdering someone because of a pen.  She’s interrupt though because when she turns back to yell at the guy, there’s Finnick Odair with a shit eating grin in a green polo shirt that matches his marble eyes.

‘Oh fuck off,’ she tells him reaching over the divider to grab the pen and snap it. It breaks easier than she expected-must be no brand.

‘I liked that pen,’ Finnick pouts.  She bites the inside of her cheek to make sure she doesn’t blush.

The story of Finnick and Johanna is a simple one, with no exes or confusion about relationships. She came from Minnesota, he came from California they didn’t bring the high school drama like the Colorado kids did.

When she was in first year, she slept with Finnick. It was not a onetime thing, but it never progressed in to anything because Finnick doesn’t do relationships and she at the time did not want a boyfriend.  It was just sex but somehow there became feelings and there cannot be feelings because that’s three years ancient history and Finnick has moved on and what happened is long forgotten to him.

It’s trivial; it’s sex and that was all but it felt like so much more.

‘Besides I ought to be mad at you,’ Finnick continues.

‘What?’

‘You,’ Finnick tells her, ‘never told me Annie Cresta was a Worlds player.’

She blinks, she didn’t know that either. She knew Cresta was good-had to be with the way Enobaria and Cashmere talked about her-but she didn’t know she was that good.

 ‘I didn’t know,’ she tells him honestly, closing her reading. Finnick always distracts her. ‘Besides what of it?’

‘I was wasting my time training her.’

‘Oh, yeah,’ she nods. ‘She told me you never let her finish her sentence.’

‘Seriously?’ he sighs. ‘I thought she was making that up.’

‘Why would she do that?’

‘Because it’s a fucking stupid idea.’

‘Then she’s stupid,’  Johanna says simply. ‘Why are you so…why do you care?’

Looking at someone’s face when you care for them deeply means you can see the emotions flicker across their face, shadows in his eyes until it’s gone; Johanna searches but all Finnick shows on his face is a small rueful smile.

‘I don’t like secrets,’ Finnick tells her simply. ‘And I don’t like it when people I trust keep things from me.’

Shame feels like dry skin and if she gives into the temptation to scratch once, she’ll be scratching everywhere desperate to get some relief.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says, scratching the itch. It’s not her fault and she didn’t really know or care because Annie made it very clear she’s not into Finnick and besides Finnick doesn’t go for girls who look like a good gust of wind could send them flying.

‘Well you’ll have to make it up to me then,’ Finnick tells her decisively, standing up all pretenses of studying-really what _was_ he doing in the library?-gone like smoke.

‘And how’s that?’

‘I want a strawberry and crème frappuccino and I want it venti and I want it now.’

She doesn’t laugh, but there’s a small smile on her face as she packs up her bags and lets him lead her to the library Starbucks.

* * *

 

What she likes about mindlessly coding is the same thing she likes about running after discs, after a while it’s completely instinctive and she can be productive thinking of other things-more important things-and still get something done.

And now her important thing is the fact that she has managed to piss off the captain of the Mamabirds, and generally one of the most influential people in the collegiate ultimate scene by lying by omission to him.

And there is also the fact that Katniss, one of the only handlers they have and a vital member of the team, hates her because of her lie of omission to Finnick.

It’s always interesting how people on a team can affect each other; and it’s quite clear from the start that Katniss held the emotional center of the team, while Johanna led it. Katniss had the widest net of connections, best friends from high school with Madge, elder sister to Primrose, in some sort of non-relationship with Delly’s cousin.

She has no one on her team, no one on her side, even if her side is correct.  It’s fighting an uphill losing battle against an army with a fork.

And all of this trouble could have been have been avoided if she hadn’t decided to mess with Finnick. No, not mess with Finnick; it was her pride. Her pride was wounded that he didn’t know despite not having any reason to. She had left for years, as a minor player in a big pool-why would she be memorable?

‘God I fucked up,’ she says more to the computer screen then herself; she waits for some comment, half hoping it will be like a movie and someone-Finnick so she can apologise-would answer her.

There’s no one there.

* * *

 

‘It’s so fucking stupid,’ Delly says over fruity cocktails at a bar Gale Hawthorne would rather chop off a limb than be seen at.

‘And yet you can’t stop talking about it,’ her cousin says. Peeta looks out of place in the martini lounge, more often frequented by women on their ladies night.

‘Well no. I mean Jo’s floating on air she had a “date” with Finn, Katniss is fucking pissed because Prim was talking about how cool Annie is like she’s trying to steal a little sister.’

‘Is Annie trying to steal a little sister?’

Delly snorts unladylike into her little pink drink umbrella. ‘Please. Annie’s anti-social. You know the most I know about her is that her CD player in her car is almost all Spice Girls? She doesn’t want a little sister-hell I don’t even know if she wants to be on the team.’

‘Finn told me he had to beg,’ Peeta muses drinking his matching fruity cocktail without a hint of derision. He’s comfortable with his sexuality-not that a fruity drink should make one question  their sexuality and he’s also incredibly single targeted with his sexuality to the point that she wonders if he’s the one on the ace spectrum rather than her.  They do this every other week, going to some cool trendy bar and trying out their signature drink. It’s a good way to keep up with each other’s lives, and expand their social horizons because a night out with Madge and Gale and they others always ends up in the save dive club bar that’s in an identity crisis with a stripper pole in one room and in the next cowboy boots.

‘From what I heard it’s not really begged, it’s more of an ambush,’ she tells him reaching over to the empty table next to them and snagging the desert menu. ‘Ooh cheesecake.’

‘So why is this important anyway?’

‘Besides the fact that your girlfriend-oh I’m sorry I mean the girl you’ve stalked from a far for years, slept with and then somehow are unable to have a conversation with despite the fact that you had your tongue in her whoha- hates the new girl and the seventh and final member of our team? It means we can’t have any parties.’

‘Katniss and I talk,’ Peeta tells her defensively. ‘We talk all the time.’

‘About the weather, or ultimate. Not really good I want to marry you and make you cinnamon toast and  cheese buns every morning in our white picket fence with our two point five kids conversation,’ Delly intones. ‘But that’s what you’re focusing on? Not the fact that all of our social events don’t work if our team is fighting.’

‘Better fighting then fucking,’ he tells her cheerfully, waving down a waitress to get their orders of cheesecake in. ‘Besides it doesn’t really matter anyway.’

‘You would know all about fucking,’ she tells her cousin. ‘And it does to matter. Because how do we keep a team together if we don’t get bonding mani-pedis?’

‘If you get Katniss-hell Jo to do mani-pedi night I’ll pay your tab for a whole night,’ Peeta promises her.

‘I take that bet,’ they shake hands. ‘But you’re missing this. We only have seven people we need to get along otherwise we’re all fucked up the river for Nats-hell the next tournament.’

‘That’s in October right?’ she glares at her cousin who grins at her undisturbed. ‘It’ll be fine. You know change is good and Katniss isn’t good with change so give her time to get used to Annie and everything will be fine.’

‘I don’t think there’s time,’ Delly insists. ‘I think Annie’s going to leave anytime now.’

‘She won’t,’ Peeta says confidently.

‘How would you know?’

‘She doesn’t look like a quitter.’

* * *

 

There are levels of pathetic that she has not fallen to, and that level is actually going up to Finnick Odair’s office and waiting for him to at least give her time to explain herself.

She’s thought about it, yes but he’s already mad at her she shouldn’t willingly give him another reason to dislike her.

It’s why when she does run into him, she’s ahead of him in the line at the university center Starbucks and only notices it’s him behind her because she drops her phone and they both reach to pick it up.

‘Oh,’ she says faintly. ‘Hey.’

‘Hey,’ he echoes, more out of social convention than out of a want to have a conversation.

She ignores that, going straight to awkward small talk because this might be her only time to apologize and explain and he’s her best friend and roommate’s twin brother’s roommate and good friend, so it’s very likely even if she quits ultimate again, they’ll see each other because of the same social circle they run.

‘How are you?’

‘Good,’ he tells her stiffly. ‘You?’

‘Okay.’ They move up in line, and the lady asks for their orders-a tall dark roast for her, a strawberry and crème frappuccino for him-and she knows she needs to say something but it’s hard to say because part of her (a large part) doesn’t think she’s does anything wrong however she needs to keep peace. ‘I’m sorry.’

He doesn’t get a chance to say anything because she’s at the cash register and she pays for her drink and his, the perks of being first in line and he can’t protest without drawing attention-not that there aren’t ten people in the line checking him out anyway.

That’s just the type of person Finnick Odair is; he draws attention like he breathes.

The good thing is paying for his drink gets his attention and makes him follow her to the comfy arm chairs.

The bad news is it makes him mad as well.

‘Why did you do that?’ he demands, while she makes herself comfortable.

‘It’s me apologising. I’m sorry,’ she says checking her phone. She has to meet Prim in half an hour to go throwing again.

‘You don’t mean it,’ Finnick tells her roughly, sitting down glaring at her. ‘You’re just saying sorry because you think you should.’

‘No, I’m saying sorry because we’re friends-‘the look he gives her is pointed, she quickly backtracks. ‘Okay maybe acquaintances?’ Finnick’s look gets darker. ‘Not exactly strangers?’ she tries again and Finnick seems unable to find fault in that.

‘Look I’m sorry I technically didn’t lie but I still sort of lied to you,’ she says rushing because she just knows he’s going to interrupt her again. ‘And I’m sorry because it was rude and petty and I was being stupid. And you don’t actually have to forgive me but I want to apologize and maybe things can go back to normal.’

‘There’s no normal though,’ he tells her. ‘I don’t know you-and I never did because you were lying to me about playing for the entire duration of our…knowing each other.’

‘Then let’s start over,’ she says immediately. ‘Hi, I’m Annie. I’ve been playing ultimate longer than I can remember, and I’m a software engineer and I don’t usually think before I do something.’

Her hand is out and she is waiting. It’s not exactly nerves but there’s a skittish feeling on the bottom of her stomach because if he refuses this, then it really is all over and she has to quit ultimate.

‘Finn Odair,’ he says shaking her hand. ‘I started playing ultimate when I was ten because a supply teacher taught me. I like chemistry because explosions are kind of cool and I can be bought for Starbucks.’

‘Good to know,’ she says smiling slightly. ‘Next time everything can be done much easier if I buy the sugarest drink on the menu.’

‘Next time?’ Finnick repeats, but there’s humour in his eyes now.

‘Well yeah, I told you act first think second right? It’s why I’m such a good cutter,’ Annie leans forward to whisper.

‘I’m not easily bought by Starbucks,’ he warns leaning forward. ‘I’m not a cheap girl Miss Cresta.’

‘Of course not,’ she grins. ‘If I ever fuck up badly enough I can buy a disc.’

‘True, that is the way to my heart,’ he tells her.  

‘I’ll remember that,’ she promises checking her phone, ‘Anyway I’m glad we got stuff sorted but I have to go meet Prim.’

‘The baby Everdeen whatever for?’

* * *

 

Prim is a bit late to the field, but when she arrives there’s the tall good looking captain, Finnick Odair in jeans and a rolled up button down and boat shoes tossing a disc to Annie in a babydoll dress.

‘What’s going on?’ she asks, throwing her water bottle next to Annie’s bag and Finnick’s backpack.

‘I’ve decided to help you,’ Finnick tells her. ‘It’s only right because we need a future captain who can put up with mini Hawthorne-if he’s as moody swingy like his brother.’

‘I’m going to be captain?’ Prim says confused as Annie runs and leaps for a disc in pretty heeled shoes. She’s amazed that Annie hasn’t rolled a heel.

‘Probably,’ Annie says letting a high release flick soar towards Finnick’s nose. ‘I mean it’s really between you and Rue and you’ve got like three years but, it’s something to think about.’

‘Besides,’ Finnick catches the disc before it can break his nose and it looks like Annie is pouting. ‘I’m better at throwing than Annie. You’ll actually learn something.’

‘Hey!’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we have officially closed arc i.
> 
> Unofficially I have arcs in mind. 
> 
> Let me know what you thought, and please if you enjoy it leave kudos! Or you know comments because those I feed on.
> 
> Much love and I'll see you next Monday (hopefully)


	6. oh noes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well after last week, where we took a break we get a new chapter.
> 
> Where we live up to the porn.
> 
> Enjoy!

The best thing about being on a team is the sense of family, Delly has decided and since her family is back in New Jersey and her closest family is her cousin who lives with Gale Hawthorne of all people (she really doesn’t understand that friendship and she bets neither of them do either), her surrogate family has become the Ravens.

True she lives with half the team, and yes two thirds of the other half are too young to go out and the last third prefers silence or something than actually being around them; but families don’t always have to get along, they just have to love each other.

Which is why she’s implicated Girl’s Night.

Saturday night, at almost six, Rue and Primrose come with their overnight bags, and their make-up collection. Annie comes twenty minutes later, with a small bag that’s probably designer.

It’s almost ready to begin.

Girls Nights are more or less formulaic, there is pizza to made and that means they have to make three different pizzas, one just pepperoni for Delly and Annie, one with pineapples and mushrooms because Jo has no sense of taste and a third one with as much meat as possible for Katniss and Prim.

There’s only a bit of sauce everywhere from when Madge accidently puts her elbow on the spatula and screams, red on the back of a grey sweater that makes Jo laugh and Katniss snort and Madge rub her elbow on Katniss’s orange tshirt.

Delly and Annie are in the corner, easily and quietly making their pizza in the corner.  When it comes out of the oven, Madge has to take a picture because they’ve arranged the pepperoni in the shape of a dick.

‘Mature,’ Katniss says when she sees it.

‘We are,’ Delly says. ‘Dicks are so much more appealing when you can eat them.’

‘I’m pretty sure someone got arrested for eating a dick once,’ Madge says bringing hot plates to the living room to put the trays of pizza on the low coffee table in the living room.

‘You mean Jo?’ Delly asks.

‘I haven’t bitten off anyone’s dick,’ Jo tells them remorsefully. ‘I’m not that kinky.’

‘But you are kinky aren’t you?’ Madge says and Jo rolls her eyes, walking to Madge’s favourite topic of conversation, sex.  She hasn’t figured out if it’s because Madge likes showing off she’s the only person in the house getting laid on a regular basis, or if it’s because Katniss turns such an interesting shade of purple red or even how Jo becomes such a…girl, but whatever the reason after Madge made sure Delly was cool talking about sex, it becomes a regular topic.

‘Fuck off,’ Jo says sitting down angrily in her corner armchair. ‘I have a normal kink level.’

‘Of course you do,’ Madge scoffs. ‘It’s always the quiet ones who have the biggest kinks.’ She casts a look around the room; there is Rue who is sitting on the edge of the couch looking like wild horses couldn’t pull her away from this conversation. There’s something unsettled on Primrose’s face, a pained expression that she’s keeping behind a nonchalant façade, which slips through the cracks as Madge pushes on. Annie looks nonplussed, like talking about kinks is normal conversation, while Katniss is trying to shrink.  ‘Right Katniss?’ she grins. ‘I bet you like being tied up.’

‘ _Madge!_ ’

‘Oh my god.’

‘Brainless being tied up?’ Johanna laughs loud, snorting into her beer. ‘Course she would.’

‘Shut up.’

‘Okay hands up, who’s a virgin?’ Madge says overriding the brewing temper tantrum between Katniss and Johanna with the practise ease of a long tired baby-sitter.

There’s a long pause, where no one raises their hand but Delly.

‘Prim!’ Katniss squeals, looking scandalous. ‘You’ve-you’re-‘

Prim rolls her eyes and sticks up her hand, ‘So…yeah but it’ embarrassing.’

‘No shame,’ Delly tells her. ‘Sex isn’t a big deal.’

‘You can’t say that,’ Madge says. ‘I mean it isn’t, but you’ve got a bias.’

Delly cocks her head, reconsidering what Madge said chewing on the dick pepperoni pizza. ‘True. I mean I’m ace so I can’t actually tell you sex isn’t a big deal because you know…I don’t have it. But it’s not a buig deal.’

‘You’re ace?’ Annie says looking up. Delly nods, ‘But you kissed me?’

‘Well yeah,’ Delly says. ‘Ultimate is so incestuous and I felt like I was missing out but it’s not like I want to do anything it’s just…so I kiss everyone once they join and so I’m part of the incest and then it’s done.’

‘Oh, okay cool.’

‘Sex isn’t a big deal?’ Rue asks. ‘I thought it was actually something you don’t you know…’

There’s a rock and a hard place in conversations when talking to rookies, especially ones who are as young as Rue and Prim. There are people who at eighteen are very grown up, and there are people like Rue who are a very young eighteen.  She doesn’t want to corrupt the innocence, god knows the team needs some innocence.

‘It’s what you make it,’ Madge says. ‘It’s not a big deal to me, but I’m also three years older than you. If you haven’t done it then it might be a big deal for you because getting naked with someone makes it hard  to just go back to whatever.’

‘Oh,’ Primrose says quietly.

‘If you want to lose your virginity then do it, it’s not like you change as a person,’ Annie says, speaking up again.  ‘Just don’t do something you regret.’

‘Did any of you regret it?’ Primrose asks.

Annie and Madge both shake their heads, Johanna is biting her lip, thinking it over before she lets out a long drawn out, ‘Nah.’ Katniss is looking at a knot on the carpet, from the cat curled up in Primrose’s lap, refusing to look up.

‘All these questions,’ Madge smiles knowingly. ‘Thinking of doing it Prim?’

Both Everdeen sisters choke on their waters.

‘What the hell?’ Katniss sputters, while Johanna takes too much pleasure in slapping her back trying to clear her airwaves.

‘Oh shit,’ Primrose covers her face. ‘Oh shit.’

‘Prim!’

‘It’s nothing-no I’m not- there’s nothing.’

‘That’s not what I’ve heard,’ Madge says singsong like, playing devil’s advocate. ‘I heard that Rory Hawthorne is very interested.’

‘Hawthorne?’ Katniss says strangled.

‘Madge!’ Prim yelps.

‘Girls Night finally got interested,’ Johanna says reclining twisting the lid of her bottle of beer.

Delly frowns at her; this isn’t exactly the bonding she wanted, but beggars can’t be choosers. ‘Oh hey Jo,’ she calls. ‘I’m going to paint your nails tonight.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Jo says waving her away. ‘You can try.’

‘Rory Hawthorne?’ Katniss says incredulously. ‘No way.’

‘Why not?’ Primrose asks.

‘It’s Rory _Hawthorne_ ,’ her elder sister repeats.

‘Yeah, so? Just because you and Gale have a fucked up relationship doesn’t mean I can’t have one!’

‘What happened between me and Gale is ancient history!’

‘Damn straight,’ Madge chimes in.

‘Then why do you think Rory is a bad idea?’

‘You can’t date-and you sure as _hell_ aren’t having sex.’

‘I’m eighteen! I’m adult you don’t have any control over me!’

Katniss sputters, and it’s a stalemate between the two sisters who had unbeknownst to them began shouting to each other. Rue looks alarmed beside her best friend, something Delly feels is reflected on her face. Johanna and Madge both look amused.

‘I have your cat,’ Katniss thunders, and the cat in question opens one bleary eye to survey the scene before going back to bed.

‘That’s real mature Katniss,’ Primrose says stiffly. She lets her cat go off her lap, before stiffly getting her overnight bag and purse and her shoes on.

‘Thanks for having me,’ Primrose says before she leaves.

The room is silent, before Katniss stomps upstairs, presumably to her room and with the student housing walls, they can hear a muffled scream into a pillow.

‘There was a bit less bloodshed than I expected,’ Annie says from her arm chair.

* * *

 

> flip this shit 

* * *

 

She knows Rory is in his dorm room in Porter Hall, trying to finish a psych paper due on Monday.  His roommate is home for his mother’s birthday, and the entire bus ride back to campus her phone has been buzzing. 

Maybe she shouldn’t have stormed out there, but maybe Katniss shouldn’t be so against her being with Rory.

There’s a lot of maybes.

Either way, she knows what she’s going to do. She trudges up the stairs two at a time, because the elevator in her residence hall is always broken.

Once she gets into room, number twelve, she drops her overnight bag on the floor, and digs around in the drawer under her lumpy single bed.

She doesn’t have a lot of sexy underwear, what she does have comes from a shopping trip with Rue that Katniss didn’t know about and it’s nothing very exotic or sexy in comparison to all of the things in the store. It’s a thong, purple and lacy and it looks so out of place with her cotton Wal-Mart undies.  She changes into the thong quickly, before rooting around in her desk rawer.

For orientation all freshmen were given a grab bag, full of coupons and a water bottle, and a few condoms.  She finds the blue shiny tin foil and shoves it into her jean pocket and texts Rory she’ll be there in five minutes, before leaving her phone and locking the door.

When she gets to the door of his residence, he’s waiting with a hug and a confused expression.

‘I thought you had girl’s night?’  He asks, as they wait for the elevator.

‘No,’ she says shortly. She doesn’t want to think about that.

‘Cool,’ Rory grins, and it’s crooked and makes her insides flip. Rory’s handsome in a James Dean way, rough around the edge from where they grew up, a low income building they called joking The Seam.  But he doesn’t have Gale’s chip on his shoulder; he was eight when his dad died but he didn’t become the man of the family, thirteen year old Gale became.

When they get to his dorm room, there’s a towel on the floor and her nose wrinkles. It smells like weed.

‘Sorry,’ he tells her apologetically, closing the door behind her. He crosses the room to crank open the window.

‘Working hard on your paper I see,’ she smirks, flopping down on his desk chair while he sits on the edge of his bed.

‘Of course,’ Rory grins. ‘I find it helps me focus.’

They share a smile, and he hands her the joint, relighting it after he hastily put it out before coming to get her.

She inhales, her eyes closed. Katniss would kill her if she caught her smoking.

‘I want to have sex,’ she tells him, exhaling with her eyes still shut.

‘What?’

Her heart feels like it’s trying to escape from her rib cage. There’s no protocol, or at least nothing she’s found. Cosmo only said that it happens usually when people watch movies. Maybe they should find Netflix up.

‘I want to have sex,’ she repeats opening her eyes. ‘With you. If that’s cool.’

‘That’s cool,’ he repeats, almost laughing. ‘Uh yeah-obviously. I mean…yeah.’

He moves off the bed, and stuff the joint out, he’s taller than her by a few inches, and she’s sitting in his desk chair on top of his old jeans. He has to bend down to kiss her.

It’s a kiss-they’ve kissed before, but this is different. A lot different, there’s tongue and his hands, while before did wander a bit are sliding under her shirt, cold on her hot skin making her shiver.

‘IS this okay?’ he mumbles into her neck, and she nods.

‘Yeah,’ she tells him. ‘Just cold.’

She doesn’t know how they move from the chair to the bed, but her back is pressed against the unmade bed, and her hands are trying to pull off his shirt. His knee is between her legs, and her shirt is off. She’s  trying not to blush, a bra is just like a bikini right but Rory is grinning at her, kissing down her neck, in between the valley of her breasts.

‘You’re beautiful,’ he tells her in a voice like awe, she giggles, pulling herself up by her elbows.

‘You still have your shirt on,’ she tells him.

‘Shit,’ Rory says, pulling it easily off him and tossing his shirt in a pile of the dirty clothes on the floor. He kneels back on the bed, and she winds her arms around his neck dragging him back down.

She’s busy, too busy mapping the caverns of his mouth to know what moment her bra is unhooked, and Rory slides the pink polka dots down her arm. She does know when he breaks their kiss, kissing the way down her neck to her collar bone, before he get to her breasts.

Between two fingers he flicks and rubs one nipple, the other one he swirls his tongue around, sucking and kissing. There’s a squeak that comes out of her that makes him smirk, as she bites her forearm from stopping noise.

She withers against him, rolling her hips and rubbing herself against his knee, feeling something hard straining against the denim, as he switches breasts before she drags his face back to her lips, and she rolls them over so she’s straddling him.

It’s more instinct than knowledge as she kisses her way down his chest, finding a thin line of hair from his belly button that disappears behind the waist band of his jeans. She fumbles with the zipper, and the button, it’s harder than she thought to undress someone lying down and he helps her. The jeans are yanked down, but get stuck around his knees, and that will probably be a problem but right now it’s okay because she’s straddling Rory Hawthorne who’s wearing yellow smiley face boxers.

‘Seriously?’ she asks.

He flushed. ‘I’d have worn my fancy ones if I knew this was happening.’

‘You have fancy boxers?’

‘Shut up.’

She’s still chortling to herself, finding it hilarious that Rory would have fancy boxers that pulling the smiley face boxers down doesn’t make her nervous.

She’s never seen a penis before-well she has in text books, but not in real life and not like this. It’s kind of ugly, thick and maybe the length of her hand. There are a lot of veins and she reaches gingerly to touch one of them. Rory makes a noise, and when she looks up, he’s watching her with hooded eyes. He’s waiting for her to do something.

She reaches down to the base of his cock, and experimentally wraps her hand around it and strokes up.  She’s watching his face for any hints that she’s doing this wrong, or  hurting him but his eyes are jammed shut and she doesn’t know what to do, so she keeps on stroking. She messes up a bit, and her grip is lose and her fingers ghost over the head of his cock and he groans. She does it again, the sound makes her feel like there’s lava inside her stomach.

Rory launches forward, kissing her fiercely, making her fall back on the mattress, his hands are shaking while they undo her jeans and she’s trying to stroke him but the angle hurts  her wrists, and suddenly she’s gasping because his fingers-maybe one she doesn’t know, push in and curl.

It hurts a bit, like using a tampon, unexpected and sudden as he scissors his fingers in an unsteady rhythm.

‘Fuck,’ he huffs.’ Fuck Prim…I need…we need…’

‘A condom,’ she tells him muffled into his neck.’ I have one in my jeans-I just…’

He leaves her, and she almost moans. She’s staring at the peeling paint on the ceiling, trying to catch her breath as Rory roots around for her jeans, kicking his own off in the process. When he finds the tin foil wrapped condom, he tears it and she watches as he slips it on.

‘You’re so beautiful,’ Rory tells her, kissing her before he uses his hands to push himself in.

She’s biting her lip, because it hurts a lot more than she thought. She’s not used to something like this, and he doesn’t notice or slow down; instead once he’s situated he begins rock his hips against hers.

It doesn’t feel bad, the way he kisses and the way his hands on her breast feel. It doesn’t feel bad. But it doesn’t feel good either.

It feels like only a few minutes, before Rory’s face looks like he’s sneezing and he’s grunting something that sounds like her name.

‘That was so good,’ he tells her, kissing her once more before he pulls out.

‘Yeah,’ she tells him.

So this is what not being a virgin feels like.

* * *

 

‘I have the feeling,’ Madge says over breakfast on Tuesday to Katniss buttering her toast. ‘That you are not happy with me.’

Katniss doesn’t dignify her with an answer, instead she moves to the dish rack and snags an old travel mug, plastic and not mean for hot liquids or dish water safe not that anyone listened to those warnings. Madge was her best friend in high school, pretty blonde Madge who liked books and sundresses and didn’t care that every day Katniss brought a bagged lunch of saline crackers and peanut butter as long as Katniss was willing to talk about Darcy or Emma.

Madge got into more than one school, and could have left the state and gone to Columbia; it still doesn’t make sense why she’d stay in Colorado but she did and in their first year, in a kissing circle she made out with Gale Hawthorne.

Gale was Katniss’s first friend; they lived on different floors in the same building and their fathers worked in the same plant. When the fire happened, the Hawthornes and the Everdeens sort of combined forces; kissing Gale, at fifteen, under the bleachers at the high school football game, happened naturally. As did everything else.

They’re better now, first year was hard. He didn’t forgive her for going to Prom with Peeta because they were technically together, only not official at all-and also Gale hated Prom, and while it wasn’t her idea of a good time, Madge and Prim wanted her to go.

‘I guess you’re ignoring me again,’ Madge sighs, still in her pajamas. She has a night class Tuesday, so there’s no need to get changed.

‘You told my sister to have sex,’ she says coldly, grabbing her jacket and double checking she has everything she needs.

‘With a guy she’s been seeing for about a month, not to have some random orgy with a bunch of strangers.’ Madge says exasperated.

‘She’s my sister.’

‘She’s an adult.’

‘It wasn’t your call.’

‘And it’s not yours either. Look who knows if she has her v-card or not. She’s making her own decisions and you have to live with that.’

She slams the door behind her, effectively shutting up any of Madge’s arguments.

* * *

 

Tuesday nights are trivia nights, and the lab has a team at the grad student bar. Tonight is no exception, and he’s got a corner table with Cashmere and a few others; their team is called the Careers, because they all going to be career scientists, rather than science teachers or lab assistants. It was funnier when they were drunk a few months ago.

‘Annie’s coming,’ Cashmere tells him, bringing back a pitcher to the table. ‘She had a god awful midterm and she wants to get wasted.’

‘How is she going to help?’ he’s never met drunk Annie but she’s in computer sciences, she doesn’t have the geography knowledge they sorely need.

Cashmere shrugs, throwing her blonde ponytail over her shoulder. ‘Probably not,’ she says.’ But she needs to get drunk, we’re at a bar, and if we get her drunk enough she’ll show her boobs and we’ll win by default.’

‘She’d do that?’

‘God no. She’s a bit of a prude,’ the blonde woman laughs.

The set up for trivia is simple; every team has a sheet of paper that has a numbered list with a blank space for them to hand in their answers. After the game, they’ll  hand the sheet of paper in and it’ll get tallied and the winners get a free drink.

The first question is what is the international sports event that happens only in North America, and they’ve got about five minutes to mull it over.

‘Panem’ Cashmere says confidently. ‘The Panem Games.’

They write it down.

It’s in the third question when they see Annie looking worse for wear, with a pitcher of dark beer winding her way through the crowds to sit in the empty seat by Cashmere, saved by her purse. Annie doesn’t greet them; instead she pours herself a glass and drowns it like a fish.

‘Fuck calculus,’ she says setting the glass down and attempting to bury her head on the table. ‘Fuck it up the ass with rusty fucking chainsaw.’

‘Language,’ he says more amused than anything. She glares at him. He blows her a kiss.

‘Shut up,’ she tells him.

‘It can’t have been that bad,’ Cashmere says absently, trying to figure out the country from the clue. ‘You love math.’

‘I hate math,’ Annie tells them. ‘I hate it so much I want to blow it up.’

‘That doesn’t make sense at all,’ he says before making the executive decision and writing New Zealand as the country with the most wild sheep.

‘I don’t care,’ Annie tells him. ‘I don’t care if I graduate and have to be a stripper, I’m just done with calculus.’

‘You would be a really bad stripper,’ Cashmere tells her. ‘We carpooled today didn’t we? Fuck okay well I’m done then.’

‘You’re a beautiful person Cashmere Roberts,’ Annie tells her raising a glass. ‘Cheers to that.’

‘Oh tomorrow is going to suck,’ he says amused, tapping his half drank beer to hers. ‘I’ve never seen drunk Annie.’

‘And you never will,’ Annie vows; he raises one eyebrow (a trick that took him months practising in the bathroom mirror when he was fourteen that made his mother sigh and stock up on tissues in a very misguided idea of what he was doing in the bathroom) at the contrary image as Annie is half way done her pitcher of beer.

‘Whatever you say bud,’ he tells her, excusing himself and grabbing her a glass of water at the self-serve station. ‘Maybe get some food in your stomach? Don’t want you barfing in Cash’s car.’

‘I haven’t barfed since I turned twenty,’ she tells him proudly, but she accepts the water all the same. ‘It’s a streak.’

‘You’re what twenty-two? Not that good of a streak.’ Annie shrugs, not insulted and she drinks her beer leisurely, pointing out whoever spelt PETA spelt it wrong, adding an extra e.

‘What happened to you Annie Cresta?’ he asks more to himself when she snorts her beer, laughing at a bad off colour joke.

‘Calculus,’ she tells him gravely.

* * *

 

Gale’s room is a boy’s room. It’s darker colours, and the comforter on his brand new (well okay used but new to him) double bed is one from childhood with a faded space print with moons and everything.  There’s a poster of the solar system, and several pieces of paper pinned with thumb tacks and masking tape of study notes for astrophysics and other things.

It’s nothing she grew up in, pale, and pastels and full of light, and his bed is lumpy and on the floor because he can’t afford a box set or a headboard and her head is level with the electrical socket and if she and he are not careful one of them will hit their heads on the radiator.

But she loves sinking into the lumpy mattress, feeling the tired springs groan under her weight while Gale is busy in the bathroom.  Every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday she sleeps over at Gale and Thom’s apartment. Fridays and sometimes Mondays, Gale sleeps over at her place. It’s a comfortable routine and it’s taken them three years to achieve it. Johanna keeps on saying they should just move in together, and she’d like to think they would next year if that wouldn’t leave Katniss and Delly with the need to find two new roommates with Johanna’s graduation.

Originally she thought it would be easy to replace them with Primrose and Rue but after Prim and Katniss fought over sex of all things, she’s rethinking Prim living with Katniss when they obviously have two very different views of Primrose.

‘Tough day?’ Gale asks, closing his bedroom door in flannel boxer shorts and slightly damp hair, he tosses his towel on the hook on the door and the bed groans under his weight as he stretches out beside her. He smells like tooth paste and peaches.  He’ll never admit it but he enjoys the body wash she buys and leaves at his place because she refuses to smell like a high school boy.

Madge rolls her eyes. ‘Sort of. Katniss is still being herself.’

‘Well yeah,’ her boyfriend says unimpressed. ‘What were you expecting?’

‘I don’t know…her to wake up and realize that if Prim wants to have sex she can sex?’ Madge says. ‘I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal.’

Gale is silent for a moment. ‘We went to the same church,’ he tells her rolling himself on top of her. She moves her legs, letting him rest comfortable between them. ‘It was a good, strong Baptist church. I don’t know why we went but we did and after Dad died…we went more and anyway the preacher he was a…very strong man. Very loud and very black and white, sex before marriage is a sin right? And if you sin you’ve got no heaven and then you don’t get to see your loved ones.’

‘That’s stupid,’ Madge argues.

Gale shrugs, ’But it’s what we were told. I don’t know if that explains Katniss’s attitude towards sex, I just know that whenever  I tried to get in her pants she would freeze and look like a scared rabbit or something-total boner killer.’

‘You know,’ Madge says playing with his wet hair; it only curls when it’s wet. It’s a shame, because it’s such a nice dark chestnut colour. ‘I don’t think it’s appropriate to talk about how you were trying to get in another girl’s pants when you’re with me.’

‘Oh?’ Gale smiles crookedly. ‘I’ll make you forget I said anything.’

He pushes her t-shirt (one of his old ones that she’s commandeered) up so it bunches around her breasts and begins to kiss wet and open mouth kisses on the soft expanse of her skin. Madge sighs and settles herself, one hand twisting in his hair.

He makes her gasp, when one hand slips under her yoga pants, slipping under her thong and strokes, long and leisurely. She can feel him smirk into her skin. Gale is in no rush, he doesn’t have any classes before three tomorrow and if his girlfriend oversleeps and misses her early class it’s not the end of the world.

When he reaches the edge of her yoga pants, he’s still stroking her, careful to just brush the hard little nub desperate for attention. He doesn’t pull her pants down, instead he kisses her through her yoga pants.

The stroking stops and she whimpers. Gale’s mouth is twisted in a proud smirk as he takes his fingers out, coated in her juices and makes a show of licking them clean.

‘God,’ he groans like the devil. ‘God you taste so fucking good.’

She wants to say something smart, something sarcastic but she can feel his hot breathe in between her thighs, and he’s kissing her through the fabric. It feels so good but it’s nowhere near enough.

‘Gale,’ she says, rolling her hips trying to get some relief. ‘Gale please-please-‘

His fingers drag down her yoga pants and her wet thong, and he moves to pull them off her completely. Gale moves lazily kissing up and down her legs, never giving the aching core a second glance. She’s pleading twisting to try and tangle her fingers in his hair and drag him up, when she can feel him laughing into the crook of her knee.

‘Something wrong?’ he asks. She glares at him.

‘You-please-will you-‘Madge sputters before he takes pity on her and kisses her slit long and hard.

She sighs, and settles back as he uses his tongue to fuck her, rolling her clit with her fingers. It’s hot tensions boiling in her stomach, getting hot and hotter, threatening to spill over when he switches, using his mouth to suck her clit and his fingers curling and scissoring, pumping in and out overwhelm and she rides the wave of her orgasm one hand in her mouth, the other pressing his head to her core.

She’s catching her breathe when Gale emerges from her thighs, his hair sticking up and a mixture of salvia and her own juices are on his chin.

‘That good for you?’ he asks, before she laughs, yanking him closer and kissing him.

She rolls him on his back easily and she takes him home.

* * *

 

Finnick seems to have joined in on their weekly throw sessions, not that she minds. His throws are harder to catch and it feels like she’s levelling up when she manages to if not catch one, than at least read it correctly.

Annie looks tired, wearing black rimmed glasses and laying on the grass while Finnick throws for her.

‘Are you okay?’ she asks, when they stop for some water.

Finnick snickers, ’She’s just hung over.’

‘No I’m not,’ Annie protests, dragging herself to a sitting position. ‘I don’t get hung over.’

‘Like you don’t get drunk?’ Annie’s flopped back down on the grass, looking sorry for herself.

‘Fuck you Finn.’

‘I know you want to,’ he baits, winding up for a high release flick. She chases after it, so she doesn’t hear Annie’s response.  She jogs the disc back to him. ‘You know, you should really try throwing it back to me.’

‘I’m not good enough to do that yet.’

‘Then shouldn’t you try?’ Annie asks logically. ‘Oh yeah, forgot to ask you earlier, you okay?’

‘Okay?’ Finnick says turning to look at her more thoroughly. ‘Is something wrong?’

She flushes. Since Saturday she and Rory have done it three more times, and it’s starting to hurt less. But it doesn’t feel like anything’s changed. She hasn’t told Rue, and she didn’t bleed too much, just a bit but because they were on top of his comforter-which is red, she managed to wash it off by arguing that his room stunk like weed.

‘Me and Katniss got in a fight Saturday,’ she tells him.

‘Really?’ Finnick doesn’t throw the disc, apparently he’s a talking about feelings sort of person. ‘I thought you guys were close.’

‘We were. She doesn’t like my boyfriend.’

‘He’s probably a dick,’ Finnick says easily, getting ready to throw the disc again. ‘All guys are.’

‘It’s _Rory_ ,’ she tells him, aghast that he’d think someone on his own team is a dick. Finnick looks at her blankly, trying to figure out why he should know the name. ‘He’s on the team? He’s Gale’s younger brother?’

‘Oh,’ recognition dawns on Finnick’s face. ‘Mini-Hawthorne.’

‘Sure,’ Prim blinks. ‘If you want.’

‘So she doesn’t like your boyfriend, it’s no big deal. Katniss will get over it,’ Finnick tells her.

‘Really?’ Annie says, from her grass pile. ‘Because that sounds like Katniss.’

‘Eventually,’ Finnick fixes. ‘She’ll get over it.’

‘She won’t,’ Prim says confidently.  It feels like false confidence, trickling down her leg draining away. She wants to talk to her sister about it but Katniss would never listen because she’s too young to be having sex even though Katniss and Gale did it in high school. ‘I had sex with him.’

‘So?’ Finnick asks.

Annie drags herself back up, ‘You okay with that sweetie?’ 

The girl in the grass doesn’t make any movement for Prim to come closer, she doesn’t offer a hug like Delly would, or knowledge like Madge. She doesn’t try to reach out awkwardly like Katniss would. Annie just sits there.

‘Yeah, I guess I just…’Prim sighs and tries to speak. ‘I just thought it would be more…more. I just thought it would be more.’

‘Yeah,’ Annie says. ‘But there isn’t. Do you regret it?’

She doesn’t say anything because it’s this ball of wire, sharp around the edges buried in her chest and there’s an answer trapped in the middle that she wants to know but every time she tries to pull at it, he cuts herself.

‘How old were you were you lost it?’ she asks instead.

‘Sixteen,’ Annie tells them.

‘I was young.’ Finnick says darkly.

‘Did you regret it?’

Annie shrugs. ‘Not really. It was with my boyfriend, everyone was doing it, I wanted to. I mean it wasn’t good, and I’ve never had worse but it’s not…it was never something important to me so…’

‘Oh,’ Primrose says.

Finnick throws the disc again.

* * *

 

Thursday mornings, right after practise at ten thirty every Thursday since he was eighteen is his standing appointment with Doctor Cecelia.  Sometimes things are just too much.

They’re talking about going to one visit every two weeks, and have been for a while but the last time they tried that, he was in third year and he had an anxiety attack that made him miss a midterm.  

He’s in the waiting room, sort of watching the news, but mostly flipping through his phone with a coffee when he senses someone settling down in the empty seat beside him. He looks up and he sees a head of dark curls smiling nervously beside him.

‘Hi Finn,’ she says sheepishly. He knows her, she’s on the women’s team, small and quick and she looks really young even if he remembers she’s in first year.

‘Hey,’ he says brightly. ‘How you doin’?’

She shrugs, and he remembers they’re at the clinic on campus.  ‘I think I’ve got the stomach flu,’ she tells him and smiles apologetically as he cringes.

‘Well feel better,’ he tells her as Doctor Cecelia steps into the waiting room, and he gathers his things. ‘I’ll see you around okay?’

She nods.

* * *

 

Since they both managed to have cell phones, she has not gone a day without talking to her sister. It has now been five.

Prim hasn’t answered her phone calls, her emails, her texts or even her Facebook messages and Katniss went the public route of trying to get Prim’s attention by tagging her in a status.

There was nothing.

Nothing but radio silence and this growing fear that Prim is dead or married or pregnant or something.

It doesn’t help that her friends aren’t even taking her side, they don’t see what Prim is doing or did or will do- god will she just answer her phone?

Madge is on the yay Hawthorne side and is not exactly a traitor but she’s biased because she’s in love with Gale, Delly is calling herself Switzerland, refusing to comment and Jo-Jo is the worse every time she sees Katniss she makes innuendos, she asks if Prim has been deflowered, or a real girl or something cruder than the last.

So she doesn’t spend a lot of time at home, instead she is going running.

She just doesn’t want to think. One foot in front of the other, a steady pace run. Until her legs give out and she can’t feel her lungs without the burn. That’s what she wants.

‘Oh, hey Katniss,’ Peeta Mellark says, fixing the straps of his backpack.


	7. stella a

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well here's some more stuff.
> 
> It's fluffy. I think.
> 
> Also I found out that Colorado isn't a city but a state. The more you know

Thursday morning practise has never been Peeta Mellark’s favourite thing in the world.  Not in the slightest, but he has to admit there’s some relaxing about waking up at five thirty in the morning and dragging himself to the field.

Running laps with Finn and Gale and the others until the entire team is assembled and then being able to go do drills-long hucks Haymitch makes him practise especially, because he specializes (if you can really specialize in a sport without referees) in pop passes, short no further than a few feet, with accuracy and power which is ideal for indoor, but when there are things like wind and other factors not the best.

There’s something about tired muscles and sweat and not thinking about last night running into Katniss on his walk home, or the way she kissed him against a tree out of nowhere like she needed some sort of answer but she didn’t ask a question and all he did was put his hands on her waist and she froze and ran away.

There’s something about running so hard and almost tripping during lay out drills that just make everything seem less and forgettable and really that’s all he needs.

* * *

> wings and beer do not make good hangover food

* * *

 

It’s a tradition that everyone who is able gets breakfast after practise at Baker’s.  They’re all starving, and some people like Cato have to get to roman civ because of an early morning presentation (for the life of him, he will never ever understand how big, burly Cato who looks more like a tank than a person, is studying classical humanities) are just going to hop in the shower than go to class.

He doesn’t have to get to the studio until eleven, which means a nice two-hour breakfast is perfectly doable.

‘Don’t forget,’ Finn says from the grass, his legs stretched out in front of him with a knee brace-he hurt himself when he was about fourteen with an ACL tear and sometimes he wears a brace during practise, ‘This Friday is the Ultimate social.’

‘What?’ Marvel says, not looking up from his red gym bag where he’s tossing his white jersey.

‘Social, we’re doing a potluck at the girls-so actually bring food. I swear to god if we all show up with chips, one of us will die and it will probably be Hawthorne.’

‘Hey!’

‘Which one?’ Rory asks, over top of his brother’s protest.  Finnick looks amused, like it’s still taking him time to reconcile with the fact that Gale has younger siblings-Gloss told them about the laughing fit Finnick had when he realized that Gale was a boy not a fifty year old woman. Apparently the fact his name is really Fin _nick_ was lost on him.

‘Real Hawthorne,’ Finnick says. ‘Your girlfriend is like a cat. She’s too docile to kill anyone.’

‘Have you met her cat?’ Rory mutters under his breathe, and Peeta chuckles. The dark haired boy who really does look like they cloned Gale and just took some of the haunting out of his eyes beams.

‘Either way pot luck, I’ll email you all tomorrow to remind you. But like…just do not all bring chips. Someone bring real food.’

Peeta reminds himself to bake cheese buns Friday after his afternoon lecture on figure drawing ends. They always go over well.

* * *

 

When they finally get to Baker’s, it’s Haymitch who works for the university in some capacity, Finnick who is doing his masters and seems to operate outside of the whelm of schedules, Marvel who very specifically rearranged his schedule so he never had a class before noon, and Peeta.

‘Food is beautiful,’ Marvel tells them very seriously as they all look over the white menu. It’s the six dollar breakfast special, and the menu is merely a decoration, they all know what they want and the likelihood they will ever change their order is as likely as Haymitch taking up sobriety.  ‘But the most beautiful thing in the world is-‘

‘Me?’ Finnick interrupts.

Marvel scowls at the captain, before smiling charmingly at the waiter. If it weren’t for Finnick, Marvel would easily be the best looking in the classical sense, like he was carved from marble. It was some sort of competition between the two of them, with Marvel drunkenly and angrily confront Finnick about it at a party two years ago.

‘Coffee. Coffee, sorry Finn you’re not my type. I like my coffee like I like my men, strong, black and silent.’

‘So Thresh?’ Thresh had been sick with a nasty stomach flu and hadn’t left bed in two days. Otherwise he’d be at practise, he never missed one in the three years he had been on the team.

‘Fuck you Finn,’ Marvel says signally for the waiter to come.

‘Only if you ask nicely, and even then you’re not as pretty as me so….’ The captain drawls as orders for coffee and breakfast are taken.

‘You only fuck people as pretty as you Odair?’ Haymitch says from his corner, looking up from the newspaper. ‘There’s no one as pretty as you.’

‘That’s how I like it.’

‘Didn’t you sleep with Johanna?’ Peeta asks, stirring the cream in his coffee.

‘You saying Mason isn’t pretty?’ Haymitch asks. ‘Wouldn’t let her here that.’

‘She’s pretty,’ Marvel says. ‘In the serial killer way. Like I am pretty sure she is the one mostly likely to snap.’

‘I think it’d be Gale,’ Finnick says. ‘He has sort of a dark look in his eyes.’

‘Nah,’ Peeta argues. ‘Gale’s like…the guy you want to lead you when zombies come.’

‘I don’t want Katniss with me with the zombies,’ Marvel says.

‘What? Why?’ It’s a stupid feeling creeping up in the pit of his stomach, but he’s personally a bit insulted that she isn’t on Marvel’s dream team for a hypothetical situation.  ‘She’s got good aim, she could probably…have a bow and arrow and headshot them all.’

‘Because a bow and arrow are useful in a zombie apocalypse,’ Marvel snorts.

‘Well what would you use?’

‘A shot gun. Sawed off, double barrel.’

‘That’s stupid,’ Finnick rolls his eyes. ‘You’d run out of ammo. A sword or like…something long. Like a spear only better…a pitch fork only sharper, yeah that would be better.’

‘You mean a trident?’ Marvel asks incredulously. ‘Where the fuck are you going to get a trident in Colorado?’

Finnick shrugs, ‘Where the fuck are you going to get zombies?’

* * *

 

Annie agreed to pick up Rue, Rory and Prim and drive them to the potluck, and so at a quarter past six she was waiting at the university center parking lot. Rue was holding a tray covered with tinfoil, and waving as she jogged over to the car.

‘Prim and Rory are on their way,’ Rue tells her sliding into the front seat, making her car smell like freshly baked brownies. ‘Thanks for picking us up.’

‘No problem,’ Annie waves off the thanks. She figured that bussing with food would be awkward, and it’s on her way. She thinks Finnick mentioned he would be doing the same with the other rookie boys, and thought it was a smart idea.

Primrose and Rory come into view, hand in hand, with Rory holding what looks like a pizza box and Prim with two bottles of pop.

‘I think that’s cheating,’ Annie says in greeting as Prim gives her a smile, and Rory-or at least who she assumes is Rory, she had to be truthful she doesn’t know who Prim’s boyfriend is.

They slide in the backseat, with the pizza in between them and the car smells like pizza and brownies, and it sort of makes Annie remember of her first few years of her undergrad when Reid and her made the trip and bought too much food for the munchies.

She hasn’t thought about Reid in a year, not since their messy breakup. They had just petered out and it’s the awkwardness of trying to save a relationship no one wants to save that destroyed them. She saw on Facebook he has a new girlfriend, and she’s pretty. She’s happy for him.

‘You can’t really cook in dorm rooms,’ Rory tells her as she flies by. ‘No oven.’

‘How did you make brownies?’

‘Microwave cup brownies,’ Rue tells them. ‘Only more.’

‘Innovative.’

She makes the mental note not to eat Rue’s brownies. She’s learnt from experience that brownie microwave life hack food is never good.

‘Are you guys excited?’ Annie asks, merging, glancing in the rear view mirror. The thing about sports like Ultimate is that it needs to be liked by the new players to continue on. If no one wants to play ultimate, then the team will die, and the best way is to hook the rookies and give them the sense of community and family and make them want to keep the team.

‘I guess,’ Prim says. ‘It’s not like last time went well.’

Rue twists in her seat to share a look with her best friend, the said cause of the problem from last time is looking at the cars on the highway not noticing or knowing what he inadvertently caused.

‘It’ll be better this time,’ Rue encourages. ‘I mean she’s not going to be a bitch in front of everyone, she’s not like that.’

Annie snorts but disguises it like a cough.  Rue seems to only see the good in people and it’s an admirable trait, but one that could get her very hurt if she’s not careful.

‘It’s so stupid,’ says sadly Prim.

‘What is?’ Rory is finally paying attention as Annie turns onto the street. There are more cars there, so she parks down the street.

‘Nothing,’ Prim says. Rory doesn’t look like he’s going to believe her but doesn’t push it. The kids head up the sidewalk to the house, while Annie waits, popping the trunk and pulling out a cookie platter she had bought. Domestic tasks, such as cooking or laundry have never been her strong suit.

The door is left open, and the cat-some flower name that doesn’t suit it at all-is already in Prim’s arms, and there is the loud grumble of people talking over each other and a TV.

‘Cresta,’ Finnick is on the steps, pulling off his shoes. ‘You came.’

She rolls her eyes at him, handing him the cookie tray as she slips off her heels and sets them out of the way. ‘Where else would I be?’

‘Yelling out wrong answers to trivia?’ his green eyes twinkle.

‘Oh my god shut up,’ she takes back the cookie tray, and winds her way through the kitchen to the coffee table that seemed to be designated the desert table, and clears a space.

‘I really liked how you said that Johnny Depp was the pirate king,’ Finnick continues, the salad he brought on the counter. ‘But I think my favourite was the loud argument you had with whatshisname about Egypt not being in Africa.’

‘You’re never going to let me forget this are you?’ she asks as Jo comes up to get more food on her paper plate.

‘Forget what?’

‘At trivia Annie got super drunk,’ Finnick says handing the smaller girl a paper plate, ‘And she’s an angry drunk.’

‘I’m not an angry drunk!’

‘You were at trivia?’ Jo asks.

‘Loud, yelling and argumentative,’ Finnick amends, grabbing garlic bread and salad.

Annie glares at him, ‘Cashmere invited me,’ she tells Johanna skipping the garlic bread because of the cheese on it. She didn’t bring the pills and garlic bread isn’t worth the stomach pain. ‘I was having a bad day and I wanted to forget but someone is an asshole and won’t let me forget.’

‘Mona Lisa is French!’ Finnick mimics what Johanna supposes is Annie’s voice when drunk; it’s higher pitch and slurring, and it sounds like he’s trying to do a Boston accent and failing.

‘Oh my god, shut up.’ Annie rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t seem angry or annoyed. When did they become friends?

The last time she and Finnick talked about Annie was a few weeks ago, and he was mad at her for lying at him and now they’re…it’s not flirting. It’s not because there’s no hidden meaning to the glances, there’s no double entendes or innuendos. She’s exasperated at him, but it’s good nature and he’s teasing her with no cruel intent. It’s not flirting, but it could be.

She feels sick to her stomach, a bit flushed and maybe Gale’s shrimp stir-fry isn’t suited to her stomach. Jo gets a glass of water and watches them from the corner of her eye. They’re bickering as they make their way round the table but once they get to the living room where an old game from mixed Worlds is streaming they go their separate ways. Annie ends up on the floor beside Delly, while Finnick is talking to Marvel and Cato.

It’s stupid. It’s pointless and petty feeling jealous-because this is jealous the way she feels sick like the floor is about to drop out and she’s just waiting like a sitting duck-about Finnick and Annie when neither of them have made any move to show that they’re more than friends, and friends is a stretch because she’s pretty sure Finnick still hasn’t forgiven Annie for lying.

It’s stupid and she feels sick and her hands are in such tight fists that her nails dig into her skin making tiny crescent moon in her palm.

* * *

 

She can see Katniss watching her-her older sister is staring openly at her from the corner of the room- and she doesn’t know what to do. She’s angry at Katniss, and she has a right to be angry because what Katniss did was stupid and over the top. 

She’s an adult and Katniss has no right to even think she has a say in what she does or does not do. She’s not twelve and she doesn’t need her sister to fight her battles.

She doesn’t want to talk to Katniss, she wants to be angry and she can be angry. She can be angry and she will not be the person who mends the bridge. Katniss doesn’t talk about her feelings, she bottles them up and pushes on ahead, something that she had to do when their father died and their mother couldn’t function but it’s not healthy, it’s not good. They aren’t scared children starving anymore.

Sometimes she doesn’t think Katniss gets that.

She goes back to watching the screen and cuddling Rory ignoring her sister and blushing prettily at all the comments everyone makes. There’s no mal intent, just teasing.

* * *

 

At about an hour into the game, Katniss watches as Prim gets up and heads upstairs to the bathroom. She doesn’t even pretend she’s going to grab a drink, instead she follows her.

The bathroom door is closed before she can stop her; Katniss waits, hands in the pocket of her jeans, leaning so her back is against one wall and her socked feet touch the other.

‘Prim,’ Katniss says when the door opens and Prim shaking the water off her hands is startled. ‘Hey, we need to talk.’

‘About what?’ Prim says tightly, refusing to step over the threshold of the bathroom. They’ve drawn a line between the off white tile and the pressboard pine floors. Neither one will cross it.

‘You know.’

‘No, actually I don’t.’ Prim says. ‘I don’t know, so we have nothing to talk about.’

Her sister pushes past her, her blonde curls almost hitting Katniss in the nose. She acts fast, grabbing Prim’s wrist and swinging around.

‘Katniss!’ her sister yelps, sounding insulted.

‘We have to talk,’ she says lowly, forcing Prim backwards into her clean bedroom. ‘And we will talk.’

‘About what?’ Prim asks snidely, sitting down on her twin bed. ‘About the fact that I have a boyfriend? About me having sex? God Katniss just because you fucked up with Gale years ago, and you have like fifties mentalities about sex doesn’t mean you get a say in my life.’

She rocks back on her heels; it stings like Prim slapped her. She can’t do anything but stare at her sister looking unimpressed and bored at Katniss. Her hair is out of her braids.

She’s known this; she saw Prim with her long blonde hair, almost a white yellow, curled and blown out like the other girls on campus.

She just…she braided Prim’s hair for as long as she can remember, two straight braids until Prim was ten then she wanted fancier ones-she learnt how to fish tail, and French braid and how to do the milk braid hair band thing for her prom.

Her hair is out of braids.

‘Why?’ it stumbles off her lips, a small word drawn out, not a whisper, but not a yell either. It’s monotone but laced with emotion. The word is a contradiction.

She knows _why_ , she’s always known.  Kids grow up, and Prim was a kid. But she’s eighteen now, and she looks eighteen. She looks eighteen and she is eighteen but she’s a little duck and someone will clip her wings.

‘Because I wanted to do.’  Her sister is unapologetic.

‘Why?’

Prim looks at her like Katniss is stupid; it’s such a foreign look on her sister’s face that she doesn’t know how to react or what to say.

Prim leaves the room, and Katniss doesn’t stop her.

* * *

 

Once the game is over, and it’s close to ten when the people who want to go downtown (Madge, Delly, Marvel and Cato and some others) want to leave, and the pointed look Jo gives him reminds him of the administrative duty they actually have to do.

‘Okay wait,’ Finnick calls loudly, cutting off Madge and Delly’s argument of which club. ‘So next weekend is the alumni exhibit game, so we’re calling lines right now.’

‘What do you mean?’ Rue asks, from a sofa corner where Thresh is using her as an armrest. Finnick smiles winningly, with the women playing savage there’s no reason for them to ever call a line.

‘For who’ll play. We’ll try to stretch it all out so we’re pretty even. And if you aren’t called, it’s beacuase we want to win, and we still need you. But when we’re going against the Roberts twins? Yeah no we need the best line.’

‘They’re playing?’ Annie asks interestedly. ‘That’ll be fun.’

‘Glad you think so,’ Finnick says. ‘You’re the only person who seems to think so.’

Annie shrugs.

‘Okay so line A: Cutters: Cresta, Hawthorne, Thom and Marvel. Handlers: Me, Thresh and Peeta. Line B, cutters: Rue, Thresh, Delly and Mini Hawthorne. Handlers, Jo, Katniss and Cato. Everyone else will play for a point but those are our main lines okay?’

‘Why is Annie playing?’ Katniss asks, emerging from the stairwell. ‘She’s a rookie.’

‘I’ve played Worlds for years,’ Annie says icily. ‘I’ve been doing this longer than you.’

He can see Katniss’s feathers being ruffled and he knows Annie’s thoughts of this whole ordeal from the cliff notes rants Annie went on Gloss.  And while he would love to see what ranting Annie looks like, there are cabs waiting.

‘So yeah,’ Finnick speaks loudly. ‘That’s the teams. Don’t forget.’

* * *

 

She sleeps in until noon on Saturday, there’s toothpaste on her dots and she’s not actually awake but some version of sleepwalking and she doesn’t actually hear whatever Cashmere, peppy already with a few coffees in her says.

Annie just nods, drinks her coffee black and then rolls into the shower.

She spends the rest of Saturday studying and outlining in more detail the theoretical aspect of her final project, why the code she’s working on actually is needed.

So when Cashmere sticks her head in her room, dressed like a Bronchos’ cheerleader she’s very much taken aback.

‘Why aren’t you ready?’ Cashmere asks. ‘We have to leave in ten minutes.’

‘For what?’

‘The game! Remember? Gloss got tickets from work, and he’s taking this girl and you know we need to check her out.’

‘So?’

‘So he had six tickets and we’re going so get dressed. We’re leaving in ten minutes and I will drag you out of this place in your yoga pants.’

She just stares as her door is slammed in disbelief before she slams her laptop. She knows Cashmere and knows that it’s not an empty threat. She doesn’t know anything about football, but she knows Cashmere and Gloss are Denver born and they bleed the orange and blue.

She tries to dress for a football game, but when she comes out to the early October in the old vintage t-shirt Cashmere gave her last year she feels stupid.

‘You look great,’ Cashmere says before attacking her with orange lipstick, drawing the logo on her cheek.

‘Thanks,’ she says before glancing to Enobaria who looks unimpressed but also decked out in orange and blue with a horse head on both her cheeks.

When they pick up Gloss and Finnick (the girl-Effie maybe?- is meeting them at the arena-or field?), Gloss is decked out similarly to his twin while Finnick has a baseball cap on his curls and an old shirt. He is significantly less decked out than anyone else.

This is unfair, but it’s too cramp to actually do anything about it, so Annie waits until they get their seats in the end zone.

‘Cash,’ Annie says when Finnick goes to the stand to get the beer, and a hot dog because Annie didn’t get dinner. He lost rock paper scissors and he’s lucky Annie didn’t make him get a pretzel as well. She’ll make the next beer run-both of them aren’t driving and she doesn’t know the first thing about football, so getting sloshed is a thing that could happen. ‘Cash I need your lipstick.’

Cashmere turns her head, rooting in her purse, while Enobaria is flipping through her phone. Enobaria has the seat at the end of the row, next to Cashmere. There are two empty seats for Gloss and his date, and then Annie’s seat with Finnick at the end. It was unanimously decided that Annie was too tiny to be allowed on the edge of a football crowd who could get angry if they lost.

‘Here, but I don’t think that pink’s your shade,’ Cashmere hands her the glossy gold tube.

‘No, no not that one, the orange one. You brought it right?’ she asks anxiously.

‘Of course,’ Cashmere says taking the right lipstick encased in black and took the pink one back. ‘Why?’

Annie grins wickedly and Enobaria looks up from her phone and smiles,’ You’ll see babe. It’ll be great.’

* * *

 

He battled a huge line at the concession stand, and has managed to balance the tray of three beers (two dark for him and Annie and a light one for Enobaria-Cash is driving and Gloss can get his own beer) with the two hot dogs as he makes his way down the stairs to the second row where they’re seated. Enobaria plucks her beer off the tray, nodding her thanks and slipping a tenner on the tray.

He gets to the end of the row, hands the tray to Annie who holds in her lap, smilingly brightly as he sits down and takes his beer.

‘Finnick,’ Annie says sweetly, smiling brightly.

‘Yeah?’ he’s suspicious, but the hot dog smelt too good to question it.

‘You’re not very festive,’ Annie tells him. ‘We need to change that.’

‘What are you talking about?’ her smile is scaring him, but he doesn’t  move away when she puts the tray with her beer and hot dog back in his lap.

His eyes widen when she holds up the lipstick tube, and she’s still smiling widely.

‘Annie, Annie no. No don’t-‘ his protests fall on deaf ears and she’s holding firmly onto his chin as she draws in bright orange lipstick on his cheek. ‘Oh my god,’ he groans defeated and deflated when she turns his face to draw on the other cheek.

‘There you go!’ She caps the lipstick.

‘Happy now?’  he asks, Annie nods. ‘Good.’ He pulls out his phone and gets the front camera up. ‘Smile.’

Annie rolls her eyes. She doesn’t like getting her photo taken-she doesn’t have social media besides Facebook and even then her profile picture is from three years ago-but she leans into Finnick and makes a ridiculous face.

The orange lipstick on his right cheek, he thinks is supposed to be a horse. On the left cheek she just wrote “win”, a safe bet in comparison to her artistic talent.

‘A real one now,’ he tells her. She rolls her eyes, but she smiles at the phone for the picture.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the kudos, comments, faves and the likes and reblogs on tumblr. I adore you all


	8. caps

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it's been awhile. Life goes on, people graduate and get full time jobs and get angry over tv shows and maybe engaged and stuff.
> 
> Y'know life.
> 
> BUT YOU NEED TO KNOW [ When Annie and Finnick selfie](http://thewildwilds.tumblr.com>Anh</a>%20drew%20the%20last%20scene%20of%20last%20chapter!%20<a%20href=) so you need to give her so so much love because holy fuck guys. CAN SHE ART AND WRITE.

It feels a lot like standing on one of those ridiculous inflated pool animals and slowly sinking, Johanna muses as she gets to field for the alumni game. Madge drove her house, which was an interesting drive-Katniss still isn’t talking to any of them except Madge for being on Prim’s side on the whole sex thing.

It’s a stupid fight; Katniss needs to realize Prim doesn’t need to conference her in with any or every decision she makes, and Prim needs to realize her big sister is not good with change and maybe telling her she had a boyfriend would have smoothed the whole thing over.

Lucas ‘Marvel’ Marvellenzio and Jason Cato are already at the field. She doesn’t know either of them too well, despite being in the same year. Cato she knows is a roman civ student, and one of the best handlers the Mamabirds have. Cato is throwing ankle biters and Marvel is lunging for them with ease.

‘Yo,’ Marvel calls, tossing a backhand to Madge who has to jump to catch it.

‘Hey,’ Delly calls back.

Gale is there at the benches tying up his cleats, so Madge tosses the disc blindly making Peeta who has to scramble to reach it as he walks onto the field.

‘Hey,’ Peeta says smiling kindly. His eyes linger on Katniss longer than is friendly and Delly and Jo exchange glances. If Peeta wants to get into Katniss’s granny panties than he has to wait at least sixteen years because that’s how long it took Gale to get an over the bra grope fest.

So Peeta and Katniss black out drunk having sex back then is by far the most action Katniss has ever gotten.

‘How are you?’ Delly asks her cousin. Jo’s bored with the conversation, though watching Katniss fiddle with her braid and alternatively looking at Peeta from the corner of her eyes.

There’s loud chattering and it’s a sign that the Roberts twins, Cashmere and Gloss, blonde and tall are here. Bringing up the rear is Enobaria Chambers, who took a course or two over the past few years, and technically making herself an alum. Annie and Finnick bickering come in a few minutes later.

And this is where the sinking feeling comes in full forced.

She saw the photo from last weekend, the two of them at the Bronchos game. They’re both stunning, and Finnick uploaded it to both Instagram and Twitter where it go retweeted by the official Broncho twitter with the hashtag relationship goals.

It’s stupid, she knows Finnick and Annie aren’t dating-Finnick doesn’t date and Annie doesn’t…she doesn’t seem to care about it all. But it’s still making her feel like she’s putting on hand sanitizer and has a million unknown cuts on her hands.

‘Hey Jo,’ Annie smiles as she approaches them, ignoring whatever Finnick was saying with a roll of her eyes. ‘How are you?’

Jo shrugs.

* * *

> holy fuck the bus exploded

* * *

 

The team, the fourteen of them all of them the best at what they do-reasonably speaking are huddled in their end zone.

Or at least they’re trying to.

‘Why is this so hard to understand?’ Gale complains, Delly elbows him. ‘It’s right knee bent,  right arm on the back of the person next to you and left hand over your crotch.’

‘Because it’s stupid,’ Madge says. ‘Can’t we just huddle like normal?’

‘It’s because each man is your shield and your staff,’ Finnick tells them. ‘It’s a tradition.’

‘What if I don’t want a staff?’ Annie asks. ‘What if I want like a mace?’

‘You have to have a staff,’ Cato argues. ‘Because when we do the cheer you’re jerking off the guy to your left.’

‘I am not touching anyone’s dick,’ Delly says loudly. ‘No way in hell.’

‘This is all a giant dick joke,’ Jo snorts. ‘Of fucking course it is.’

‘Can we just get this over and just go?’ Thresh asks.  ‘They’re waiting.’

‘I’m not jerking anyone off.’

‘You don’t have to touch the dick, just make the motions.’

‘I’m not doing that,’ Katniss repeats.

Finnick rolls his eyes, he’s frustrated with them all with his snippy tone. ‘Fine do jazz hands. We’re going to fucking beat them right?’

‘Yeah!’  The group yells more or less in unison.

‘I said we’re going to fucking beat them right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What did I say Mamabirds? We’re going to fucking beat them right?’

‘Fuck yeah!’ The huddle roars all of them frantically moving their left hands up and down in the air, while Delly and Katniss-with less vigor- did jazz hands.

* * *

 

The first line on the team is Annie with dark hair in a long ponytail, Gale who has a trucker hat on backwards with the Mamabird logo on the front, Thom who looks bored for this entire event, and Marvel who is giving bad jokes on the line. Finnick and Peeta are at either ends with their hands in the air, ready to receive the pull while Madge rolls her eyes at Marvel’s jokes.

‘You ready?’ Finnick says smirking at Annie.  She and Madge are the only girls on this line up-Madge because she only throws hammers, and Gale will make sure he catches all of his girlfriend’s throws, and Annie because a wild throw will be caught by a ghost girl.

‘Are you?’

The pull is sent, long and fast by Gloss. Peeta receives it.

It starts.

* * *

 

Annie is running, and she doesn’t know when she’ll stop. She’s never played with half the team before, so it takes a few minutes to figure out how the team will work. Peeta likes the short throws, which is detrimental to her, so Thom and Marvel handle the short game. Gale and her go long.

The alumni are marking them man to man, which means Enobaria is grinning at her like a shark.

‘C’mon Tails, disappear on me.’

It’s a challenge, one that she wants to take up. She’s never managed to shake Enobaria, but she’s never played against her before either.

She plants her heels, pushes off and runs.

* * *

 

It’s a high stall count, and Gloss won’t move. He’s got three stalls before he’s got a turn over and he doesn’t have anyone open.

It’s hell. And he can’t blame them because everyone is marked, and he can’t risk sending it back to Madge because she has no chance with Cashmere.

‘Stall eight,’ Gloss counts grinning viciously.

What is worse? A turn over so close to their end zone or a Hail Mary to empty space so when it’s turned over it’s not too close?

‘Stall nine.’

He makes his choice: a high release flick to nowhere is better than the turn over.

* * *

 

Primrose and Rory are late to the field, so Katniss is already on the field, playing a point. Rory goes straight to Finnick to apologize for being so late.

‘What happened?’ Finnick asks, walking the sidelines. ‘You just had to have one more quickie?’

‘Yes,’ Prim says sarcastically as they sub in by the fly Rory for Gale. In truth the bus was late, and they walked to the wrong field where a pick-up game of soccer was going on. She figures Rory will explain it later, but if there’s going to be rumours about why they’re late, she’s going to make sure it pisses her sister off.

‘God Prim,’ Finnick teases her. ‘Why don’t you just hit and quit like the rest of us?’

‘Probably because Rory has stamina unlike you Odair,’ Annie calls loftily from her reclining position.

‘I have stamina,’ Finnick argues ‘It’s a fucking turn!’

‘That’s not what I hear,’ Madge says. She’s on the ground as well, next to Annie. Prim would eve say they’re braiding each other’s hair to pass the time.

‘And what do you hear?’ Madge pats the grass next to her for Prim to sit down.

‘Oh you know, emotionally unavailable. Good sex but not willing to commit.’

Finnick rolls his eyes, and keeps up on the sidelines with Jo, moving away.

‘Where did you hear that?’ Prim asks.

‘Jo, when she’s tequila drunk she talks about her feelings and stuff.’

‘Ew,’ Annie grins. ‘Feelings.’

‘Exactly,’ Madge agrees.

‘Did Jo and Finn date?’ Prim asks. She doesn’t know the social history between any of them, but she thought Annie and Finnick were dating because they both help her with her throws and she’s seen them around campus walking and talking more than once.

Annie looks at Madge expectantly too; Madge sighs.

‘It’s not...it’s more like they were sleeping together a bit a few years ago, but when Jo asked about making it official, Finn said nope. They’re just friends.’

‘Ultimate is so full of incest,’ Annie commented. ‘You and Gale, Prim and the….smaller one. Cash and Baria, Jo and Finnick-Peeta and Katniss-‘

‘They’re not dating,’ Prim is quick to correct.

‘Well obviously,’ Annie says. ‘The man’s a saint if he can stand your sister-oh fuck. Sorry that was mean.’

Prim shrugs. She knows the tension between Annie and Katniss-anyone with eyes would know the tension between them. It’s really easy to get annoyed with Katniss.  ‘It’s okay.’

‘No it’s not. I shouldn’t have said anything,’ Annie frets.

‘It’s true though. Peeta wants to but you know Katniss,’ Madge sighs. ‘The boy’s got blue balls.’

‘What’s blue balls?’

Madge and Annie turn to look at Prim with identical looks of condescending innocence on their faces.

‘Oh sweetie,’ Madge says as Enobaria grabs a nice floating disc in the end zone, calling a point and a change of line.

* * *

 

They lose. Fourteen-fifteen but it’s not the end of the world. It’s hard to beat Cashmere and Gloss when they’re in sync and on fire, and even harder when Enobaria gets the disc.

‘Cheer up,’ Finnick tells the team as they gather for water. ‘It’s just an exhibt game, and y’all are invited to Gloss and my place for drinks and food and y’know stuff.’

‘Board games,’ Gloss says enthusiastically. ‘We’ve got the new expansion for Catan.’

‘That too,’ Finnick says as Cashmere mimes backhanding her twin.

* * *

 

Katniss doesn’t go to Finnick and Gloss’s house. She doesn’t want to be around them, because she knows firstly they’ll be drinking, a lot. And Prim will be there.

She doesn’t want to go back to the empty house, so she’s walking around the empty campus on a Saturday night at nine. She doesn’t know how to fix this with Prim-if it’s even salvable. How do you make someone understand you’re only doing this to protect them?

Rory is a good kid, she knows he is; but there’s a difference between a good kid and a kid good enough to date her baby sister. She only has two family members in the world, and one is a long term care facility being treated for depression, anxiety and drug dependency all paid for by the government and as much as both of her daughters can give with their part time jobs.  She had a coal miner for a father who died right before seventh grade. She’s not going to let some boy-even if he’s a good kid, even if he’s Gale’s brother-hurt her sister.

She’s seen what relationship does-her mother is a prime example.  And then there’s Jo caught up with Finnick who doesn’t notice at all. Gale and Madge are happy but what happens when Gale graduates? Then they’ll break up and never talk.

Delly has the smartest idea, everyone should just be asexual. And happy.

Katniss ends up at the small chapel in the north western part of campus; it’s empty which she expected and unlocked which surprised her. The Pastor isn’t there, but she flicks the light on and feels like coming home. The pews are empty but made of pine, and she flips through a few of the hymnals.

It doesn’t take long for her to find her favourite one, and she traces the ink letters with the pad of her thumb.

‘ _Many in darkness are far astray, carry the light, carry the light,_ ’ Katniss murmurs. ‘ _Tell them of mercy that smiles above, Jesus almighty to save!_ ’

‘ _Light! light! beautiful light!_ ’

Katniss startles, she slams the hymnal closed, pulling it to her chest, as she turned. Primrose stands at the door of the chapel, a bit of red in her cheeks-probably the result of drinking at the party.

‘What are you doing here?’ Katniss asks. Prim shrugs, not crossing into the sanctuary of the chapel.

‘You weren’t at the party and I…’ her sister trails off. ‘That was Daddy’s favourite hymn.’

Katniss looks down at the closed hymnal. ‘I didn’t think you remembered.’ Primrose was only eight when their father died, and before then they didn’t regularly go to church-it was hard to get all of the family when their mother was on schedule at the hospital.

‘Daddy used to hum it when he drove me to dance class,’ Prim says walking down the pathway between the pews, her heels clicking on the wooden floor. ‘When the red lights were really long, he’d sing the entire refrain.’

‘I didn’t know he did that,’ Katniss watches Prim lift up the cover of the upright piano in the corner and sit herself down.

She starts playing the hymn, slowly at first, as if she has to take a few moments before she can remember the notes fully. ‘I can’t sing like you or Daddy but it still…I still…you know.’

The chapel is silent except for the piano.

When Primrose is finished, she pulls the wooden cover back down on the keys and swivels on the piano stool to look at her sister. It’s a moment when she knows she has to say something, but her tongue feels heavy and she doesn’t know what to say.

Prim sighs, grabs her purse and starts to walk out of the chapel.

‘I can’t say I’m sorry,’ Katniss blurts, making her sister pause. ‘I wish I could. But I’m not sorry. You shouldn’t be sleeping with Rory.’

‘Why?’ Prim doesn’t sound angry, but tired. ‘Why? Am I going to hell for having premarital sex?’

‘ _Yes_ -I mean. You’re just…you’re young. You’re too young to be just sleeping around.’

‘I’m not sleeping around. It’s Rory. We’ve known each other all our lives. It’s not a public orgy, it’s sex with my boyfriend. Who told me he loved me. So just…just drop it okay?’

Katniss nods and Prim smiles. The topic isn’t dropped, they aren’t fooling themselves, but the hatchet is buried maybe only under the surface, but there’s peace for now.

* * *

 

She didn’t actually think they would play Catan, but the party broke up a little before midnight, when Gale and Madge and the rest all decided to go down town when they realized Gloss was serious about board games.

But she’s sitting at the kitchen table, with a glass of ginger ale because she has to drive herself home-(Finnick has a no sleep over rule that he firmly enforces) with Finnick, Gloss, Annie, Cashmere, Enobaria and Haymitch. It’s the weirdest combination of people, and somewhere they got angel food cake and cheese dip and if Jo didn’t know better she would say this is a party of thirty year old virgins then unnaturally attractive athletes in their mid-twenties.

She doesn’t understand the rules, and it’s been explained ten times and all she’s got is that she has to roll a dice and pick cards and generally settle somewhere-she’s not a board game person, but Cashmere has threatened to shove the tokens down Gloss’s throat, break up with Enobaria and throw Annie’s computer in the shower already and they’ve only been playing for three hours.

Dear god, three hours. She double checks on her phone, and it is almost two in the morning and she doesn’t think it’s going to end anytime soon and she doesn’t know who is winning-but she’ll bet anything it’s not her.

‘It’s late,’ Jo points out. ‘Is the game almost done?’

‘Is it?’ Finnick asks, stretching letting his shirt ride up and showing the table accidently the lean tan skin that hints at the abs he’s hiding. ‘It’s only two; it’s not late at all.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Oh yeah,’ Cashmere looks up; she switched to her glasses sometime before. ‘It’s Catan. This can go for hours-one time it went for two whole days.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Gloss says quickly, probably a result of the alarmed looked in her eyes at the possibility of being stuck in this apartment for two whole days playing a never ending board game. ‘It won’t go that long.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Because Cash is going to lose in ten minutes.’

‘FUCK YOU GLOSS.’

* * *

 

At eleven in the morning, Johanna wakes up on a sofa that isn’t hers. Enobaria and Cashmere are cuddled up on the floor still sleeping in after calling the game paused at seven in the morning on Sunday.

Haymitch went home then, saying he’s too old to sleep in the arm chair which Annie slept in. Johanna thought of driving home as well, but Finnick asked if she was going to stay for brunch the next morning like the rest of them.

She couldn’t say no. Not if Annie was staying.

The door to Gloss’s bedroom is still shut but Annie isn’t asleep in the arm chair, and when Johanna rubbing her eyes to rid herself of sleep stumbles into the kitchen to grab coffee, the first thing she sees is Finnick passing the technology section of the paper wordless to Annie while she passes him the sugar bowl for his coffee.

Her stomach bottoms out, and she purposely stumbles into the corner cabinet.

‘Morning Jo,’ Finnick tells her looking up, his hair fresh and damp from a shower and his glasses a bit dirty. ‘You want coffee?’

‘Yeah, that’d be great,’ Jo sneaks a peek at Annie who doesn’t look at all perturbed that Johanna interrupted a quiet breakfast moment.

‘Awesome,’ Finnick stands and strides over to the kitchen cabinet next to the fridge and pulls it open to get a cream coloured coffee mug-a guest mug in every form compared to Annie’s mug that says Worlds 2010- out for her. ‘The cream is in the fridge. Do you want a bagel? We won’t get out of here for brunch until like…two so eat now if you’re in the head biting mood.’

‘Actually,’ Jo swallows, pulling the fridge open to find the cream. ‘I don’t think I can do brunch-I’ve got a paper due on Wednesday.’

‘Oh,’ Finnick says back at the table reaching across Annie to grab the sport section of the paper, she moves in tandem with him, leaning back moving her cream cheese bagel out of the way of his arm. ‘That sucks. Next time then.’

Johanna nods, ‘Next time.’

* * *

 

The next three practises are hell, and even Rue is begging for a break after all the cardio Jo is drilling them with. Prim’s fallen three times doing the ladder drill and it’s only when Madge and Delly combined threaten to quit the team do they get more than a five minute water break.

‘What the _hell_ are you on?’ Delly pants, lying flat on her back. ‘And can I get that drug?’

‘I want us to win,’ Johanna says standing upright glaring at them all, like it’s their fault for being human and needing water. ‘We are good and we do not need to be stuck in the bottom tier again.’

‘It could be smarter,’ Madge muses. ‘Playing bad teams could make us feel better about ourselves, boost team morale.’

‘Fuck that,’ Jo spits. ‘We have RAFTS next weekend, and then we have Southerns which is the last chance for us to rank before it moves indoors after Thanksgiving. We are not going to playing Tier five or whatever.’

‘Speaking of RAFTS, whose driving to Dallas?’ Delly asks. ‘I’m good to go Friday or Thursday-we start at eight right?’

Madge rolls herself onto her stomach, ‘I can leave Friday around ten. It’s what? Twelve hours from Denver? We get to hotel at ten at night? Shit that’s long.’

‘If we leave Thursday, it’s an extra night at the motel,’ Katniss points out. ‘That’s more money.’

‘I’d rather pay more than get into a motel super late at night,’ Delly argues.

‘Not everyone can do that.’

‘Then I’ll pay for you,’ Annie says. ‘I don’t want to drive for twelve hours the day before a tournament. Sunday is already going to suck, so let’s just bite the bullet and drive up Thursday.  We can spend Friday doing whatever, and we’ll be rested for Saturday.’

‘Does anyone have any classes they cannot physically miss on Friday?’ Jo asks. Rue hesitates before shaking her head. ‘Okay, then we’ll leave Thursday.  Madge, Annie you guys okay with driving?’

‘Yup,’ Madge nods. ‘Thursday I can leave anytime, how about you?’

‘After ten works better for me,’ Annie says. ‘I can change my meeting with my adviser, but generally speaking ten thirty would be better.’

It takes about ten minutes to divide up the cars, and when they’re done Delly is smirking.

‘The best thing about only having seven people is that cars are so much easier to figure out.’

‘Really?’ Madge asks, leading the pack to the change rooms.

‘Mhm, the guys need spreadsheets. And even then Peeta told me he has to drive all night because he has a midterm at four on Friday.’

‘Shit that sucks.’


	9. royals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's the eighteenth somewhere

The alarm goes off at nine, telling the room that it is time to make sure they are up for a team breakfast.  Primrose automatically rolls over to slap the clock but misses it three times. Finally she gives up and sits up in the room she is splitting with Rue, Annie and Johanna.

Johanna is bleary eyed glaring at the small digital clock on the table between them like it personally  burnt her house down. The bathroom door is shut and the sound of water is muffled gives an indication where Annie is. Rue is already at the small table and chair, with coffee already brewing and deep in thought reading a book.

‘I hate mornings,’ she tells the room at large flopping back to the mattress pulling the large plush pillow over her head. ‘I hate them so much.’

‘And mornings hate you,’ Rue grins. ‘So buck up and get up. We have to meet in the lobby in half an hour.’

‘Why the fuck are you so happy in the morning?’ Johanna growls. ‘It should be fucking illegal.’

Prim doesn’t hear Rue’s response because she had only slapped the snooze button and the alarm is blaring. She groans.

She hates morning.

* * *

 

Breakfast is not as much as a disaster as it could be with seven people trying to crowd around a Denny’s booth. Denny’s is a compromise; Madge and Annie want to go to this cute little breakfast place which they read about it in the newspaper but  Katniss put her foot down, citing she’s spent too much money already because of the extra day.

‘This is not eggs benedict,’ Madge tells them as Delly passes the sugar. ‘It’s like an egg that the just poured yolk on and fried. Sort of.’

‘It’s good,’ Katniss insists.

Madge snorts. Katniss and her have different ideas of good, but it’s food and it’s edible and they have the entire day to do team bonding. Which is a good thing and something so incredibly needed. The thing about this team is there are only seven of them but their personalities clash.

Johanna is an alpha, she’s loud and large and in charge. Which is fine, they need an alpha and she’s captain. It comes with the territory. Katniss is an alpha too, but an unobservant one and she doesn’t like change. She doesn’t do well with it and everyone knows and she makes life a bit unbearable unintentionally because she doesn’t deal with change. Delly is here to be a peacemaker, soothe the bumps and the bruises because everyone loves Delly and Delly loves everyone. Prim  is in the awkward position.

‘This is not eggs over easy,’ Annie grumbles. ‘We are not eating at McDonalds for dinner.’

‘We’re not going to Red Lobster,’ Katniss shoots back.  Annie glares. Delly needs to intervene or the whole fact that came here a day early to relax will be lost. 

‘We need to stop at the drug store,’ Delly announces over top her fruit cup, seeing Madge’s frantic  looks.

‘Why did you forget your condoms?’ Johanna snipes from the other end of the table. Delly defuses Johanna with an eyeroll. This is not the time of sarcastic one liners, but a time to save a sinking ship before a tournament.

‘We need nail polish, nail polish remover, face masks and q-tips stat.’ Delly lists, grinning at her friends around the table.  ‘We’re having a spa day in our room for the rest of the day-so did anyone bring a cord to connect their computers to the TV?’

‘Do you think that a spa day is a good idea?’ Rue asks cautiously. ‘Didn’t the last one sort of…really suck?’

Prim reddens and Katniss frowns. They’ve just buried the hatchet so a cute little wink about how it only sucked for one of the Everdeen sisters is left burning on the tip of Delly’s tongue. ‘So what?’ she says instead. ‘We have a whole day where we know no one-we can’t do anything-we  can’t burn ourselves out. So why don’t we just have fun?’

‘Because spa day is never fun?’ Johanna says.

‘Bullshit,’ Delly speaks over top of the captain. She still has the bet with Peeta about pedicures so she’s making Spa Day happen.

‘I think it’s a good idea,’ Madge voices her support.  She knew she would have that vote. ‘I mean it can’t hurt us.’

‘I think I have a chord in the glovebox of my car,’ Annie says thoughtfully. ‘I’m pretty sure I shoved it there.’

Annie’s car is like a treasure box and it tells much more about her than she’s ever told them about her.  There’s only Spice Girls CDs in the car, as well as fifteen different pairs of sunglasses and a lot of empty gum wrappers. And apparently computer chords.

‘So that’s settled then,’  Madge says, ‘We’ll do a girls’ day.’

His car is filled with undergrads-which of course, makes sense. He’s doing his masters; he’s the oldest one on the team and in his last year of eligibility. He could play pro-there is the very big chance that he could but Finnick’s always had tunnel visions-playing rec and playing on competitive club but not in the AUDL because the AUDL is such a commitment and he wasn’t ready to do that yet.

But six years in college means he’s got to go next year and that means leaving the Mamabirds. Or he could do what Gloss does-he lives and works in Boulder but plays professional for  the Salt Lake Lions, the closest AUDL team to them.  The future is a very ways away and he doesn’t need to think about it as he drives his car of first and second years who have the more lax and flexible schedule.  Gale is taking Thom and Thresh and his brother and another one leaving at around one. Gloss left  at seven this morning. Haymitch has another car at four. Peeta and the others are leaving around nine at night because they all have midterms at seven and can’t miss it.

Most of the guys are asleep while he hits traffic. That means he can sing along to One Direction too loudly and no one can say anything.

* * *

 

It’s not actually that hard to fit seven girls in one hotel room-in fact if it weren’t for the laws, they would have only rented one room. There’s a chick flick-the one with Katherine Higel in those bad movies she was in playing, mostly as background music as chips, and tea and pop are passed around.

Katniss had consented to let Prim give her a pedicure-a small concession to appease the uneasy peace-no one knows how the sisters patched things up but no one cares either because they can have team building exercises without a lot of tension.

And Delly totally got a snapchat to send to Peeta who sends a snapback of him dying in the library saying she still needs to get Jo to get her toes painted.

The entire thing is very relaxing until Madge opens her mouth. ‘So Rue, you seeing anyone?’

Rue looks up from where she is painting her nails an electric blue. ‘What?’ they don’t know much about Rue. She’s a sweet girl, but quiet and her expression makes her big dark eyes look like a startled deer.

‘Is there anyone special in your life right now?’ Madge, ever persistent pushes. Madge likes  to know everything about everyone but sometimes it is like pulling nails trying to find out anything about the shy first year. ‘Come on Rue it’s been almost two months and all we know about you is you’re from New York, you’re studying history and you can run like a cheetah-‘ Madge pauses in her tirade to reconsider what she said’ That sounds a bit racist but I didn’t mean it that way. You’re just crazy insane fast. Anyway that and your birthday in December is all I know about you, so why don’t you share?’

‘Uh,’ Rue blinks. ‘Okay. Um…yeah I’m not dating anyone.’

Madge settles back onto the mattress, a bit disappointed at the lack of gossip.  She was hoping for something interesting because everyone on the team seems to have complicated love lives-with the exception of herself due to a three year commitment to Gale that was both stable and good, and Delly whose interest in both sex and romance were nil.

‘Is there anyone you want to be dating?’  Madge pushes and Rue blushes. Rue’s blush sparks interest in the rest of the girls.  Primrose  has a knowing smirk,  snickering as she applies the top coat to the bright pink on Katniss’s toes.

‘No,’ Rue stammers.

Primrose cackles.

‘I’m sensing a lie here.’

‘There’s no lie.’ Rue’s bright red, and she’s looking more and more like a deer who’s about to get hit by the oncoming car with a desperation for self preservation but no real idea how to get it. Madge takes pity on her.

‘Gale and me are celebrating three years next month,’ she tells the room. ‘I’m thinking it might get some backdoor action as a celebration.’

Her announcement comes with a predictable response. Katniss is bright red, Prim and Rue both look confused. Delly is surprised, and Johanna is cackling. Annie looks interested.

‘What does that mean?’ Rue asks, hesitantly, not sure if she really  wants to know but afraid that not knowing will really set her back.

There’s a part of her that pities Rue-she’s very innocent, wide eyed idealist just like Prim and she thinks maybe they should protect them. Maybe they don’t need to  tell them about sex and boys and what it’s like to be in university and let them figure it out on their own.

But at the same time, she remembers being a brand new eighteen and not sure how to navigate being  eighteen and having a relationship with a guy who she knew from high school but was totally different because this was university and when did watching movies become code word for nakedness?

She doesn’t have a little sister but she has a lot of wisdom that she feels the need to pass on to help the younger generation.

‘Anal,’ Annie answers for her.  ‘I’m surprised.’

‘Why -you do it Cresta?’ Jo snorts, there’s something acid in her voice, which makes her remarks more of a n insult than a sarcastic one liner. ‘You like it up the ass?’

‘No one has their virginities anymore, so the assginity is the new virginity.’ Annie says not breaking a sweat. ‘I just figured they would have done it already.’

‘Have you?’ Madge asks, genuinely curious. Annie just gives a small smile and no other answer.

‘God you’re a fucking freak.’ Jo scoffs.  Again it doesn’t sound nice.  Delly and her exchange looks.  It’s not a secret why Jo is being rude to Annie. Annie isn’t dating Finnick-Gale told her when she asked. They’re just friends and their roommates are twins, so they spend a lot of time with each other.

But Finnick posts a lot of photos of them on Instagram-well them and others, that it clogs up the feed and because his account is linked to his Facebook and a lot of people like his pictures so unless Jo unfollows Finnick-she’ll always see photos of him and Annie.

It’s made her a bit nasty to be around, but it’s so stupid. Jo and Finnick slept together three years ago-before Madge even knew them.  It was just sex, Jo said. It was just sex but Jo caught feelings and she never lost them and she’s spent her entire bachelor’s degree in love with Finnick who moved on once he got bored with nothing more than a hug and a  coffee.  Some people just cannot have sex without feelings and Jo is one of those people even if she’s trying to deny it.

‘Why is she a freak if she’s had anal?’ Rue asks, innocently. Or maybe not so innocently, when Madge picks up the slight glint in her eyes.

‘Because only whores have anal. It’s disgusting and it’s dirty and it’s not fun.’

‘Hey!’ Madge takes offense to the whore comment.

Katniss speaks up, ‘It sounds like you’re speaking from experience.’

Jo glares at them all. This team is a disaster, everything is falling a part so badly that they can’t even watch a damn Katherine Higel movie without someone getting mad at someone for doing something that Person A has no reason to get mad about because Person B doesn’t need to take Person A’s feelings into consideration .

Annie sighs, ‘Jo let’s talk.’  They all watch Annie in her Nike flip flops slide out of the armchair in the corner where she had been painting fish designs on her nails walk towards the door of the hotel room and leave the room.

There’s a beat, where they all wonder if Jo will follow her and they’ll talk or if Jo will just sit there and not talk. Jo goes into the hall.

There’s a collective sigh of relief, that they haven’t been too fucked up that they’ll have to drop out of the tournament.

‘I told you girls nights were a bad idea,’ Rue says.

* * *

 

So he has road rage. It’s a thing. And he speeds, which is another thing. And he doesn’t use his blinker because he’s a damn good driver and has fast reflexes and if he’s going to be stuck behind some marron mini-van with the stupid stick figure family stickers on the back window who is going twenty under on the freaking high way he’s going to weave, toss the suburban soccer mom the finger and get ahead.

And because he must have murdered children in a past life for how bad his luck is, he’s promptly pulled over by the cops.

‘Fuck.’ Finnick says, resisting the urge to bang his head against the steering wheel. ‘Fuck my life. Fuck.’

The boys in the car are all a bit too quiet, they’ve never really spent time with him outside of the field and he actually doesn’t spend a lot of time with the team because he’s much older and he has so much work stuff to do.

He rolls down his window, and resists the urge to swear again as the police officer walks towards him. Usually he can flirt his way out of speeding ticket with female police officers but a male officer is a bit harder-near impossible-to charm.

‘Hey Officer,’ he says breezily. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Let’s start with your license and registration.’ The officer says. He can see his reflection in the mirrored lens of the aviators.

‘Of course.’  He hands out his license, the one picture of himself that he hates where he’s caught mid blink. He reaches across the ginger in the front seat to pull open the glove box and to give the papers to the officer.

‘Do you know how fast you were going?’ The officer says peering at the papers.

‘Yes,’ he says feeling his stomach sinking into his legs.

‘And you still went fifty over?’

‘Yes. But I was stuck behind that mom mini-van who was going twenty under-which disrupts the flow of traffic and is actually a lot more dangerous than what I was doing.’

‘Mhm,’ the officer doesn’t sound impressed, as he writes a ticket. ‘Be careful next time.’

He watches the officer get back into the patrol car and drive away. The maroon mini-van bitch waves as she passes him.

‘Oh fuck you.’

* * *

 

Dinner was Chinese takeout food with The Notebook playing in the background. Jo and Annie had returned and neither of them had said anything about whatever they had talked about for two hours in the hall.

They had decided to not ask unless the two brought it up, but it was weird. Everything was weird. Annie was weird.

That’s Katniss’s biggest conclusion, after two months. Annie is weird, and being on the team has made everything weird. Johanna is even more prickly this year, and Prim is distant.  And Peeta-she looks down at her old Samsung which is on a pay as you go plan.

Peeta is complicated and she knows he wants her to text him good luck on his midterm, because he texted her he had one last night before texting her that he’s glad she made it to the hotel safe. But texting him is like acknowledging that she kissed him on her run and then again at the Starbucks in the library when she told him that she and Prim made up.

Her phone buzzes again, and on the LCD screen she can see Peeta’s name, just saying once again he’s going to take his midterm.

‘Are you going to text back?’ Prim asks, seeing Peeta’s name on the screen.

She shrugs. ‘I don’t know.’

‘It would be nice-he’s got a midterm to take.’

‘Oh Peeta?’ Delly asks, catching wind of the conversation. ‘Yeah it’s his film one so he’s not worried at all. But you totally should text him.’

‘Brainless text Peeta?’ Jo calls holding the carton of shrimp fried rice. ‘Yeah right.’

‘Technically it’s texting him back,’ Madge points out. ‘So there’s hope.’

‘Why aren’t you texting Peeta back?’ Rue asks.

‘Oh sweet Rue,’ Delly tells her, patting her hair. ‘So innocent-Katniss is afraid of Peeta. And Peeta while he speaks girl doesn’t speak Katniss.’

‘Does anyone speak Katniss?’ Rue wonders. Annie snorts into her noodles.

‘That is the question,’ Madge says. ‘So far Peeta is the most fluent male in Katniss-though he’s bound to mistranslation.  The best without mistranslation is Gale-but he’s resigned from being a Katniss Whisperer to being a Madge Murmurer.’

‘Is everything you say bullshit?’ Katniss asks incredulously. She doesn’t like attention on her, but her phone lights up again to remind her that she still hasn’t answered Peeta’s text.

‘Nope,’ Madge pops the p. ‘It’s all one hundred percent true. So get your ovaries in action and text the poor guy back.’

‘Ovaries in action?’ Johanna repeats. ‘What the hell does that mean?’

‘I was going to say grow some balls but I actually don’t want Katniss to grow some balls because god can you imagine living with her?’

Katniss opens her mouth to protest, but she catches the wink from Madge and a barely constrained laugh from Delly and she knows her friends are just teasing her. They’re just teasing her.

‘Are you going to text him?’ Primrose asks, her head on her shoulder as they sit against the headrest of the queen sized bed.

‘I don’t know,’ she says more to herself than the room at large. The conversation had already moved away from Katniss and Peeta and the text message to texting in general and how to text a guy.  There are rules, Madge is adamant, and Rue soaks them all in like a sponge. If it’s a guy who you want to actually date from eleven at night until about nine in the morning you ignore every and all his text messages so you’re off the booty call list. The rules-whatever they are, she’s never known them and they change too often for her to ever learn them-make the whole prospect of dating anyone terrifying and she really doesn’t want to try.

Look at Jo.

But she kissed Peeta and she liked it and she kind of wants to do it again. And it’s weird because Peeta is…Peeta is a friend. He was her friend in high school, and when she was at Prom she danced with him while she was sort of dating Gale. And when Gale found out-even though he never wanted to go to Prom at all-he was really mad and they broke up and she lost her best friend.

She doesn’t want to lose Peeta. So it’s better just to not have him in the first place.

‘Maybe.’

* * *

 

The Super 8 Motel is not the best place he’s ever stayed in for a tournament, but it’s not the worse and he’s so exhausted from driving, that he hasn’t even considered calling a team meeting or a check in. He’s just gotten texts from every car that’s leaving that they’re here.

Peeta texted him about forty-five minutes ago they’re on their way and will drive in shifts so they won’t get too tired and will be actually able to play when they get here.   They have a bye so their first game isn’t until eleven so he’s not worried at all.

He’s had his shower, and he’s in bed and he just cannot fall asleep for the life of him.

He needs a smoke.

He grabs his wallet, and the key card to the room and his old falling apart Addidas flipflops and goes out the front of the motel to the bench he saw outside earlier, balancing his little green lighter and the pack of smokes. He stops short, sitting on the bench is Annie  in her yoga pants looking up at the night sky. It’s a cloudy night with no stars to see, so he doesn’t know exactly what she’s doing.

‘Hey,’ he flops down beside her. The bench is wooden and the back of it hits his back at an odd angle. ‘Couldn’t sleep?’ He lights the cigarette in his mouth and exhales.

He shouldn’t like the smell but it smells like his mom and it’s comforting.

‘It’s been a weird day,’ Annie tells him. Her hair is piled high on her head, and she’s wearing an old grey zip up from Juniors years ago.

‘Yeah?’

She nods. ‘Did you know there’s an anti on you?’

‘A what?’ he asks, offering her a smoke. She wrinkles her nose but reaches for one anyway.  Annie leans forward, the cigarette between her lips and he lights it for her.

‘An anti,’ Annie tells him; she doesn’t cough when she exhales. She’s smoked before then-maybe not cigarettes but she doesn’t hold the cigarette like a novice. ‘No one on the women’s team can date you-or look at you. ‘

He blinks. He’s never heard of that, but it’s weird. ‘That’s fucking stupid.’ He tells her bluntly. ‘Why the fuck would anyone do that?’

‘Do you really need to guess why?’ Annie rolls her eyes at him. ‘I didn’t realize it was a thing but it is a thing. So maybe don’t take photos of me? Because that is just making my life kind of really shitty with unneeded drama.’

‘What? No-Who’s making your life shit?’ Gloss wasn’t lying when he said Annie was a little shit disturber. He doesn’t recall the Ravens having so much drama last year.

Annie looks at him, like he’s an idiot. ‘Do you honestly think I’m going to tell you?’

‘Yes. If someone is saying no one on the girls’ team can take pictures with me-I wanna know. Why the hell would this be a thing? I don’t talk to any of them!’

‘That’s total bullshit,’ Annie snorts. ‘You talk to Jo and Madge all the time.’

‘Well yeah but-‘ he sputters. ‘I should be able to do whatever I want with anyone I want without being told I can’t because of some stupid girl code.’

‘Girl code is not stupid,’ Annie tells him defiantly, flicking ash onto the pavement in front of them. ‘It’s important. How else are we to know that dating the ex of our best friend is a total social faux pas?’

‘Really? Because that tells me that girls are kind of bat shit insane.’

‘Oh my god, I regret telling you this. Just shut up and forget about it.’  Annie stands and glares at him. He glares back.  He’s glad she told him because if someone is saying don’t talk to him, he wants to know. And he wants to know who and he wants to know why.

‘Don’t take photos that’s so fucking stupid,’ he sneers. He’s mad, and this was not what he wanted when he came outside. ‘Fuck. All I wanted to do was to smoke and then sleep and now you tell me about this shit.’

‘Then go smoke,’ Annie tells him. ‘Go smoke and then sleep. No one is stopping you. Jesus.’

He glares at her, his smoke and de-stress is completely ruined. He gets an idea then, sliding up the camera app on his phone and raising. He presses down on the red circle in the bottom center of the screen just as Annie realizes what he’s doing.

He’s got a whole string of photographs of Annie pissed off reaching to block the viewfinder on his phone.

‘What the fuck? Finnick I just told you to don’t take photos. Delete them.’

‘No, ‘ he’s stubborn. He shoves his phone down his boxers and he gives her a daring look. He doubts Annie will stick her hand down his boxers to grab his phone. She wouldn’t even come out of the bathroom when they switched clothes at the rookie party.

She glares at him. ‘Enjoy your smoke,’ she tells him icily, flicking the butt of hers’ onto the pavement and leaving.

‘I will,’ he shouts after her. She gives him the finger without looking back.

* * *

 

It’s a bad habit but Johanna checks her Instagram the second she wakes up. She blames it on her generation’s dependence on social media instead of the fact that Finnick posts almost daily and she really likes seeing the posts.

She knows it’s pathetic, but it puts her in a good mood for the rest of the day.

Only she wakes up to a picture of Annie smoking and trying to block the camera lens. It looks cool, like something from a movie.

He’s captioned it: _Outside air, cigarette smokes, and late night chats about love._

* * *

 

He wakes up in a bad mood, which isn’t surprising since he went to bed in a bad mood, still fuming about what Annie said the night before that he stayed outside and smoked half a pack and he’s seriously regretting it now.

He moves at what feels like half speed because he has to get everyone up and make sure they’re ready to play.  He and Jo talked last week about the Mamabirds coming to watch and support the Ravens for their first game, and while it started at eight and they are late, he still wants to keep his promise.

Eventually they get to field and it takes forever to find them.  They’re playing far away from the main field, due to their ranking and the grass is still wet so his team is grumbling about having to stand. Gloss leaves to go sign them in, and Finnick and Gale decide to walk the sidelines for them.

He’s never actually watched the current version of the Ravens play before today and it looks like a disaster. A very ill-organized and set up team with mediocre talent. The blonde Everdeen-Prim is improving from her weekly tossing with him and Annie, she’s still not fast enough to get the disc but she’s making an effort and she’s pulling off much better cuts with hard angles, pushing off and pivoting instead of a full plant turn.

They were joking a few weeks back about Prim becoming captain in four years, and he doesn’t think she’ll actually get it-a born athlete Prim is not-but she’s got some bare bones in her, and she’s making an effort so if she sticks with it, she’ll get somewhere.

Rue is all over the field, there’s no real rhyme or rhythm to her pattern or her placement besides fast.  He’s amazed she’s not dying. He’s pretty sure he’d be dying if he had to run that fast, without a break. She’s not amazing, but she’s fast and speed is really critical in this game at the level she’s playing at-so if it takes a few years to make a player out of her. You can’t teach speed or height.

You can teach how to throw a flick but Madge is a lost cause and the team has caught on that she only throws hammers and every throw she has is getting hand blocked-and there was one spectacular foot block which he had to applaud for.

Delly is playing swing, she’s not that good of a handler but she’s decent enough at moving the disc and she’s good at bailing.

It’s Annie though, who keeps his attention-mainly because he never finds her. She’s got great field sense, getting open when no one else is and she makes more bids than anyone on the field-on either team. She’s laying out, throwing herself for the disc even if it’s not in the end zone. He’s seen her play of course, but usually he’s playing with her.  He understands now the nickname Ghost Girl, he understand how she’s almost impossible to find on the field, forgettable when you watch Jo’s ankle biters and Katniss’s quick long discs to the end zone from the other end zone.

* * *

 

They take half, which is the most shocking thing that has happened to them. Annie’s lungs are burn and she has a deep muscle ache that will need ice-she landed funny on one of the layouts.

Everyone is quietly dying on the sidelines and she’s not flopped on the ground like Madge or Delly but instead she’s using someone’s bag to support her, and trying not to wince when she inhales. She shouldn’t have smoked last night.

‘Can you hear us?’ Finnick drops down beside her, oblivious to the look Jo is giving her. ‘Gale and me are doing sidelines and well Haymitch is too-‘

‘From his camp chair?’ she nods to where Haymitch has his dark blue camp chair set up, looking more like he’s here to watch a children’s soccer game than a collegiate level tournament.  ‘Where’s Gloss?’

Finnick looks around, trying to spot his roommate before shrugging. ‘He went to check us in. Probably on his way back.’

‘It shouldn’t take that long. The tent’s right by the merch.’

‘He’s probably getting coffee.’

* * *

 

It’s a downwind turn, and the opposite is playing man and they’re down two points and they need to end this soon because everyone is in pain and this isn’t the type of pain that you want to press through and play on. No this is the type of pain where you are making deals with gods to just speed up time to make it end because it hurts so much.

She has no clue how they will play the rest of the tournament when there’s a loud, hoarse voice bellowing ‘Time’ like an air raid siren and Annie freezes.

Haymitch is on the field, looking worse for wear holding his hands up in the giant “T” sign.

‘Time,’ he bellows. ‘Time.’

Annie looks at Delly who shrugs.

‘We’re calling time,’ Jo tells the other team who nod, slightly perplexed. They’re not going to press it when they have a full team of subs, and they’re ahead.

They all limp to the sidelines, where Haymitch is there, as well as the Mamabirds all looking confused. Gloss is back, and he looks shaken.

‘Look,’ Haymitch starts before something stops him and he has to swallow several times in quick succession. ‘Look this isn’t easy-there was a car crash.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been awhile and I have no other reason besides
> 
> my life.
> 
> And that works right?
> 
> So thank you for reading, thank you for kudos and thank you for the comments and I promise it won't take two months for an update because now we can really get the story going.


	10. half time

It feels like a fog, the mechanical and methodical way Haymitch speaks to the small circle of university students all with ashen faces and deer in the head light expressions.

‘Sometime this morning, Peeta and Cato and Marvel’s car was flipped. I don’t know how and I don’t know why,’ Haymitch tells them. There’s a long high pitched gasp for air, and Delly’s knees give way.  Madge goes down with her. ‘They’re in the general hospital-it’s about thirty minutes away.  Their parents know and they’re on their way. That’s all I know.’

‘I’ll take Delly to the hospital,’ Gloss says bending down to gently pry Madge off the sobbing blonde. Delly’s unable to stand, so the taller man picks her and heads towards his car.  Three more boys, close to Marvel and Cato trail after them.

‘I’ll-I’ll go pull us out.’ Jo’s lips are white. It’s non-negotiable and no one would argue in the first place that they would play. Haymitch nods.

‘We’re going now,’ Gale says arms around Madge. ‘Catnip?’ Katniss follows her friends to Gale’s car.

Rory starts to follow.

‘Boyfriend,’ Annie calls over the dim of a circle disrupting into figuring out who is going in what car. Rory halts and turns, realizing that he’s the one being called. Primrose has her fingers interlaced within his.

‘Yeah?’  Rory asks.

‘You got your license?’  He nods.  Annie tosses him her keys. ‘Take the kids, drive safe.’

Rory catches the little key fob wide eyed before nodding.  The first years-all five of them have their gear and head towards the parking lot.

Annie turns to Finnick her hand outstretched. ‘Gimme your keys.’

He gives them to her; he should fight her. Argue that he’s not invalid that he can drive. But his head feels cloudy, and he doesn’t really know what to do. Annie orchestrates the remaining rides for the Mamabirds, as the Ravens-with the exception of Jo who is at the Captain’s tent withdrawing them from the tournament-have all been taken care of. 

‘Come on,’ she doesn’t take his hand, but she nudges his hip. Her purple gym bag over her shoulder, she waits for him to lead her and the three others-he doesn’t even know who is in his car-to the parking lot.  Annie slides into the front seat, her nose wrinkling as she finds out he drives stick, and she waves off the boys in the back seat saying they’ll drive.

Annie stalls the car three times on the way to the hospital.

There was a car accident.

* * *

 

She feels like she’s swimming in maple syrup, getting the words out ‘We would like to withdraw’ to the officials citing a family emergency as a need to leave. She jogs back to the fall field, and by then there’s no one left but Haymitch.

‘Where’s Finn?’ she asks.

Haymitch holds her sports bag while she throws her ass on the grass and pulls her cleats off, relishing in wiggling her toes and the thick white socks with grass stains she can escape. She holds out her hand for Haymitch to throw her Nike flip-flops.

‘Annie and him left about twenty minutes ago with some other kids.’

Johanna nodded. There’s bitterness in her throat that doesn’t belong here right now because there’s someone in the hospital but she just thought he’d wait for her.

‘C’mon, I’ll drive.’

* * *

 

Hospital foyers all look more or less the same. Still incredibly air conditioned, with a gift store off to the left filled with balloons and floors and cards that don’t actually make anything better. There’s a lack of a scent-sterility, Gloss supposes, and the under currents of buzzing conversation in short clipped tones.

Delly is frantic, her voice wavering the entire drive to the hospital, intermittently sobbing and saying in high pitched squeaks that nothing could happen to her cousin. She had snot and mascara on her face and he doesn’t have any tissues in his car.

He’s been to hospital before-broke his collar bone when he was sixteen, his leg when he was seven. Cashmere broke her hand when they were twelve and got a concussion falling out of a tree when they were nine. He’s not nervous but there’s this feeling like a million stack shocks going up and down his spine.

‘Hi I’m looking for the rooms for Lucas Marvellenzio, Jason Cato and Peeta-‘

‘Peter,’ Delly inerupts. ‘His name is Peter-he just had a stutter when we were kids and he couldn’t say his “r”s so he just…’ her voice peters out and she dissolves into a hacking cough sob.

‘Peter Mellark,’ Gloss finishes.

The nurse behind the desk smiles at him knowing and taps on his keyboard before making a sad face.

‘I’m sorry, they’re listed as critical-only family is able to see them and-‘

‘I’m his cousin,’ Delly squeaks. ‘I’m his cousin. He’s my…please-‘

‘Delilah,’ a woman’s voice makes their heads turn, and a middle aged woman who has blonde curls like Peeta makes stride towards them. ‘Delilah you’re here.’

‘Auntie,’  Delly launches herself at the woman, and she’s wrapped in a tight hug.

‘He’s okay,’ Peeta’s mother murmurs. ‘He’s okay he’s stable right now. Come on Delilah, let’s go.’

Gloss watches them leave through the doors before turning to the nurse. ‘Is there anywhere we can wait?’

* * *

 

She prays, her hands clasped and her voice gone in the back seat of Madge’s car. She doesn’t know what she is saying, doesn’t know if God is listening but the Lord owes her-He owes her big and she’s calling in her favours and Lord please don’t take him, please don’t.

She doesn’t remember the ride to the hospital.

* * *

 

He wonders what the nursing staff think when almost forty university students in shorts and jerseys and under armour make camp in the waiting room. He hasn’t seen either Everdeen, not since Gloss met them at the entrance and told them that only family would be able to see them, or Delly had gone with her Aunt and Uncle.

They had seen Peeta’s older brothers come, one with half a beard racing in white faced and wide eyed and they were taken straight to Peeta’s floor.

It’s a waiting game.

Gale is watching Sports Center on mute, staring at the small screen on the hanging TV in the corner, he’s playing with his girlfriend’s hair absentmindedly as Madge sleeps, curled up in the uncomfortable chairs.

Someone found a pack of cards and in the corner there’s a game of poker going on, from the murmurs Rue is clearing up.

Johanna is sitting opposite of him, and every time he tries to meet her eye she looks away. He doesn’t know what on earth he has done to piss her off-well he has some sort of an idea, he bets it has something to do with Instagram and Annie and an anti but he doesn’t want to deal with that right now.

He looks at the clock. He keeps on hearing the minute hand click past even though theoretically he shouldn’t be able to hear it. It’s been about five hours, and he still doesn’t know what has happened beyond a car crash.

No one knows the status of Marvel or Cato, and no one has seen their parents.

* * *

 

The hospital Chapel is really just a room, with pews and a piano, there’s a pulpit but it’s on wheels and pushed to the corner.

She’s on her knees, praying to God.

When her dad died, there was no waiting. There was no feeling of standing on a teeter-totter that will give way any second. Her stomach feels like it’s on the ground while her body is ten miles up and she doesn’t know how to feel.

Primrose is holding her hand. Katniss glances at her sister, whose eyes are tightly shut and her lips are moving, in audible prayers.

If this is the peak of modern medicine, waiting in an over air conditioned hospital Chapel to get any sort of news, than she would rather go back to the Middle Ages where someone was either alive or dead and there was no waiting, no anxiety and no wondering.

_God save him, please._

* * *

 

It’s five-fifty three in the afternoon when Haymitch returns. The coach looks greyer, like fifty years have been added all at once, pushing him down. His entrance to the small hall they had penned into to keep from causing a disturbance to the rest of the hospital room stills movement.

Gale shakes Madge awake, and Johanna puts down her phone.

‘What did you hear?’ Gloss asks, first to his feet and first to Haymitch.

Haymitch opens his mouth, and then closes it. They watch the older man swallow and then try again. ‘Marvel died this morning,’ he tells them, his voice dry like the dessert and the air outside. ‘He was pronounced dead at the scene.’

‘Fuck,’ Gloss says, wheeling back as if getting away from Haymitch would make the news not true. ‘Fuck.’

Finnick watches as his best friend backs into the white wash wall and slide down it. 

‘The others?’ Finnick asks; his voice smaller than he thought possible. He sounds like a child, eight years old and scared of his stepfather in the night.

Haymitch shakes his head, ‘There’s no news.’

‘That’s good news,’ Thresh says. ‘That’s good news.’ He repeats it like a mantra. Maybe someone believes him but it’s not Finnick. No news is not good news; it means there’s no news. There’s no line of judgement. There’s no way to tell.

‘I need air.’

* * *

 

Delly’s palms are pressed against the glass window of the intensive care unit. She’s been sick twice, the first when they let her see her cousin and best friend.  He had been mangled, bloody and pale like a sheet of paper and no one could tell her if he would make it or not.

The second time had been when the doctors told them what had to be done to save him. The car had been t-boned, the right side smashed completely. Peeta had been driving and gotten the least impact of the crash.

She doesn’t want to think about the others. She doesn’t want to think at all.

She watches her cousin through the glass and she tries not to cry.

* * *

 

He leaves the hospital waiting room and he needs a smoke or something. He needs to do something, he can’t just sit here waiting to find out if Peeta or Cato have died, he can’t wait and he’s waiting.

Finnick has never liked waiting, not for anything. He likes action and movement and plans and there is nothing he can do, nothing he can plan.

He wanders outside of the hospital, towards the small little garden in the back where patients can be wheeled out for some fresh air. He can’t smoke here, and he tossed his pack into the trash can at the Super 8 before he went back in as a punishment for smoking half a pack the night before.

He’s not surprised to see Annie Cresta on a bench, with what looks like a text book in the small garden. He had figured she had ended up somewhere and Gloss when he had mentioned that Annie wasn’t anywhere, told him she was probably outside.

‘Hey,’ he flops down on the bench beside her. She looks up from her text book and closes.

‘Any news?’

‘Yeah,’ he doesn’t know what to say. It’s not something he knows how to say, but someone should tell Annie who has isolated herself from everything once she got them to the hospital. ‘Marvel is dead.’

‘Oh.’  The text book is slammed shut and he wonders idly if she’ll cry. Madge had started crying, soft movie star tears into Gale’s shoulder when Haymitch had told them. He hadn’t looked at Jo to see how she reacted. He just needed to leave the room.

‘My mom died when I was seventeen,’ Annie tells him, looking at the red brick under her runners. Sometime in the ten hours or so, she had changed from her uniform into yoga pants and runners. ‘It was cancer, stomach cancer. It was really um…it was bad. I stopped playing Ultimate. My mom taught me you know? And it just hurt a lot because she was gone so I cut Ultimate out of my life and it sucked and I missed it.’

Finnick blinks; he was expecting tears. This is not tears. ‘I’m sorry?’

Annie shrugs. ‘I’m not sure how to react to this. So…yeah.’

‘That’s a shit idea,’ he tells her. ‘Fuck that’s shit.’

Annie shrugs, and it’s so nonchalant like he just told her he didn’t like the latest episode of some show, not her reaction to someone’s death is bad. It’s hilarious. It’s so damn funny he’s laughing in these weird hacking cough-laughs.

Annie joins in.

He doesn’t know when his hacking laugh becomes hacking dry sobs, but there’s a point when it happens and he’s not laughing but crying.

‘Fuck,’ Finnick coughs. ‘Fuck…Marvel’s dead.’

It’s like a penny drops on a tile floor, the echo in his head. The words finally sink in; Marvel is dead. No more jokes about who is prettier at brunch, no more bad left handed scoobers for the hell of it, no more listening to Marvel complain about calculus midterms or his really bad tuna sandwiches. No more Marvel.

Marvel is gone.

‘Fuck.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Annie tells him looking at him sadly.

‘He shouldn’t have died,’ he tells her. Annie doesn’t say anything-there’s nothing to say. She sits beside him on the bench and rests her head on his shoulder.

* * *

 

There’s a heaviness in the air, a mugginess that is pressing on her lungs making it hard to breathe. She can’t move-it’s like a train wreck in high speed the way everyone is falling apart.

Marvel is dead.

She never liked Marvel, rarely ever talked to him. He was too stuck up, too busy with his engineer clique and his weird frat boy ways but he had never been inherently mean to her at any of the parties they showed up at outside of Ultimate.

He was an okay guy who if he saw her on campus said hi. They weren’t friends and he’s gone.

She keeps on clutching her phone, going through the snapchat story Cato sent out during the road. It was a ten second video of the guys singing some girl group song loudly and off key in the car.

It’s a stupid video, pointless and forgettable. But Marvel is there in the back seat harmonizing and doing weird hand motions. He’s alive and he’s happy.

Jo leaves the hallway. She can’t stand to be in a room full of people crying and watching a video on repeat without sound is just depressing.

Everything is so damn depressing.

She wants to see Finnick; he ran off and she doesn’t know where he went. Maybe he’s smoking again-he does that when he’s stressed and she doesn’t understand why. Instead she goes to the soda pop machine, digging around for some change.

She finds a crumpled dollar bill in her back pocket; she flattens it out of her sweat pants and feeds the bill into the slot. It rejects it.

She tries again.

The machine buzzes but still rejects it.

Johanna tries again.

The machine eats her dollar, and Johanna is left kicking the red soda pop machine in frustration.

Nothing good has happened today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter is shorter then usual because it has to be.
> 
> Get ready for a shake up in the next few chapters. The tipping point has been reached.


	11. high school

Time passes oddly after a death. Annie knows this all too well, but it’s different to be a person on the outside of grief. She didn’t know Marvel, not very well. She thinks they talked a bit on the side lines, but she wouldn’t have called him a friend-she would just call him an Ultimate.

Perhaps if she had four years of memories with him, the way Finnick did, the way Gloss did –the way everyone else did, she would be doing something better-she would be more…something.

All she can do now is be useful.

Gloss curled into himself, the Monday they got back.  He went to Cashmere and the twins went home, to their nice house. Enobaria followed her girlfriend.  Gloss and Cashmere love their teams; it’s their family and their world. Neither of them are what one would call good socially. As children they had been bullied mercilessly, premature and too small in kindergarten with odd names due to hippy parents it hadn’t been easy. Puberty had been kind to them, but they carried the ghosts of their childhood.

They had friends but no one had their backs as much as the other did.

Which was all fine and dandy, but that left Finnick alone.

She knows grief-her grief was different, the one for a mother with a long battle of illness that was more or less obvious with the ending. She doesn’t know how to deal with this type of grief, so she just sits on the sofa next to Finnick watching Sportsnet for hours on end.

She doesn’t think he’s watching it, but it acts as a background noise, something to make the quiet less quiet.

* * *

 

> _justin trudeau the new prime minister of canada coached high school ultimate frisbee_

* * *

 

Delly hasn’t come home.

She’s been with her family, watching over Peeta. She hasn’t texted any of them any updates and it is driving everyone over this invisible edge.  Johanna is quiet, but angry. Something has made her mad and no one knows what but it’s big enough and it hurts enough that it turns them all off.

There’s a time bomb ticking, and none of them know when it will go off. They just know it will. None of them have talked about the accident, none of them have even cried together. It’s just an invisible thing that they all know happened but just haven’t dealt with.

Katniss keeps on looking at her phone, trying to compose the perfect text message to Peeta. Something that says thank you, something that says I miss you or be safe or get better or just something that says she cares.

She’s not getting anywhere and she can’t ask Jo because Jo will be useless. If there’s someone worse with emotions than her, it’s Jo.

‘Do you know when Delly’s coming home?’ Katniss asks, looking at her phone after deleting more text messages that just don’t work.

‘Tomorrow,’ Madge tells her absently, reaching for a mug to put the soup she’s cooking in. ‘Peeta’s being transferred to a closer hospital, I think.’

‘Will he be allowed visitors?’

‘I don’t know. Probably not, just family.’

‘Oh.’ Katniss pauses, there’s a train of thought in her head that’s taken front and center stage, ‘Do you think when she gets she can help me-‘

‘No,’ Madge whirls around, her blue eyes flashing. ‘No stop whatever thought you have in your head. Do not ask Delly anything-especially about Peeta. Just don’t.’

Katniss feels herself recoil, backing up against the archway of the kitchen. Dimly she notes that the recycling has to be taken out.

‘I just-‘ Katniss tries to explain, she’s bad with words, bad with people. Delly isn’t and she knows Peeta better than anyone. ‘I just want to-‘

‘No Katniss. Her cousin and best friend is the damn hospital and it is not the time for your fucked up version of romance.’

‘I just-‘

‘Don’t talk to Delly if that’s what you’re gonna talk about.’

Katniss mouth is agape as she watches Madge whirl out of the kitchen, her soup in her cup. Johanna is just sitting in silence, her glasses on her face and drinking her coffee.

Tick, tick boom.

* * *

 

Weed looks like herbs. That is Rue’s thought looking at the small baggie Prim grabbed from Rory. It’s been a weird week, a very weird one and they need something to relax about.

They need to forget about Marvel’s death, about the car crash and how Cato’s family won’t tell anyone about his condition and Delly gives updates about Peeta in snippets and text messages that are shared down the line of importance which means that they know very little.

They also have a bunch of midterms and she’s been feeling really queasy so this is a good idea.

‘So how do we do this?’

Prim shrugs and empties the content of the baggie on Rue’s dorm desk, on a loose leaf sheet of paper. ‘I think you can make an apple pipe.’

‘How do you do that?’ Rue is a good girl, she’s mischievous but she’s never broken the law-even if weed is technically legal now in Colorado.

‘Google.’

‘I’m not googling this. That’s going to go up on my history!’

‘Fine,’ Prim rolls her eyes. ‘We’re improvise.’

‘How?’

Prim gives her an exasperated look that looks so much like Katniss’s when she’s thinking everyone else is stupid but her.

‘It’s called rolling a blunt,’ Prim tears a piece of paper out of Rue’s open algebra homework ignoring Rue’s protest and pinches enough weed into the scrap of paper, but tries to roll it. Some of the weed comes out of the ends. ‘Shit, I think you have to pinch an end.’

‘Like a tortilla?’

‘We should totally get Mexican after this.’

Rue gives Prim a look. They aren’t even high, they can’t be stereotypes already.  ‘Let’s just get this done right.’

‘Maybe we should call Rory-‘Primrose starts before Rue pushes her side ways.

‘You are not calling your boyfriend. This is girls’ night-not third wheeling night.’

Primrose scoffs, ‘What is with people and girls’ night?’

Rue shrugs. She likes Delly and Madge, out of all the older girls on the team they seem the well-adjusted and truthfully she wouldn’t mind being like them when she grew up. The other options are Jo who is perpetually angry, Katniss who is unobservant and apathetic and Annie who doesn’t seem to care at all about any of them. If girls’ night means she can be better than whom she is, than she’s going to do girls’ night.

Although she’s not sure that girls’ night includes weed.

Prim finally gets the blunt rolled tightly, without anything falling out. Rue glances nervously at the windows. The blinds are shut, and the window closed as well. She’s on the nineteenth floor, in the highest residence in the college so she thinks that no one will look in from the windows. Her roommate was home for a wedding, and they’ve locked their doors and there’s wet towels lining every edge of the door to keep the smell out from the hall and the RA away.

‘You ready?’ Prim asks, the clumsy rolled joint in her fingertips, waving back and forth like it’s something exotic and what she really wants.

No, Rue wants to say. No she doesn’t want to smoke it. She’s a good girl and it’s still a drug but it hurts and she’s heard them say it makes you forget and she really wants to forget.

Rue flickers the lighter in response and Prim grabs it grinning.

When Prim exhales deeply, there’s this stupid grin on her face and if this is what weed is like then maybe she doesn’t want it. But Prim offers her the joint and Rue smiles in a way that she hopes shows she’s game for anything.

* * *

 

Gale misses his best friend.  And he’s not too ashamed to say that. It’s weird staying in their place more or less alone.  Madge has been sleeping over more than usual. It’s nice, almost like she lives with him.

He can’t concentrate on the accounting homework, so he puts the notebook aside and fishes out his phone from his pocket.

He doesn’t text, he should. It probably would be faster and easier. Instead he calls.

He waits and he waits and he hits the mechanical voice, _‘You have reached a voice mail that has not been set up. Please contact the owner to have them set up their voice mail.’_

Of fucking course.

* * *

 

There is a bottle of tequila on the coffee table sitting center in between Finnick and Annie. Super Smash Bros has been paused, and they are current in an argument.

After about two days of constantly watching Finnick not deal well with Marvel’s death in a way that’s not healthy. Or maybe it is healthy to watch old games and look at photos and not really talk. But there comes to a point when it’s just not right to bottle everything up, and he’s not talking so she bought the biggest bottle of the most talkative drink she can think of.

‘I’m not saying drink the entire thing, I’m just saying you need a drink.’ Annie argues. They’re going in circles. And truthfully she doesn’t care that he doesn’t want to drink, he’s talking, arguing to her and stringing together more words than a fine, or a grunt or even a passable how are you.

‘I don’t want to drink. Marvel’s dead-do you think I could actually drink?’

‘Yeah maybe that would make you feel better.’

‘How the fuck am I supposed to feel better?’ Finnick demands, his whole body turning to face her. ‘My friend is dead. And you think-you think getting drunk is a good idea?’

‘It’s not a good idea, but Marvel is dead. He’s always going to be dead. Not talking about anything and pretty much ignoring me isn’t going to change that!’

‘I never asked you to be here!’ Finnick roars. ‘If I wanted someone trying to be my fucking girlfriend, I’d go talk to Jo.’

Annie recoils. Finnick is scary. He’s shouting, and he’s mad and maybe him yelling isn’t the best idea. He’s a tall man, broad shoulders and he’s angry and yelling. And she should be scared. She should be-he’s made it clear that she’s not wanted.

Maybe she should leave.

But the thing is, the thing is she’s Annie Cresta. She grew up on the sidelines of Ultimate games; she’s heard worse languages and seen bigger men throw temper tantrums when they loose points. Finnick Odair is scary but she’s not scared of him.

It’s hard to be scared of someone who hasn’t showered for two days and is equally bad at Super Smash Brothers.

‘Yeah,’ she says tightly. ‘Yeah I’m not your girlfriend. I don’t want to be. And I’m not Jo, I won’t be Jo. I’m Annie, I’m your friend. And maybe your girlfriend or Jo would be okay with you acting like a slob because your friend is dead. Maybe they wouldn’t say anything because they want to let you mourn your way. But guess what? Your way sucks. Go take a shower and cool yourself down before you talk to me like that.’

It’s a glaring match. She didn’t realise that Finnick has green eyes as well. His are darker, bluer. The type that would be sold for Halloween if they were coloured contacts.  Beats pass, and then Finnick gets up and leaves down the hall that leads to the bathroom.

Annie sighs, and reaches for the bottle, twisting the lid open.

* * *

 

The IV is his favourite thing. It’s this magic wire that’s connected to a magical bag that holds morphine which is the bestest thing in the world.

Morphine is magic that makes him not feel shit which means he doesn’t feel like shit and he can dream and his leg is back.

Because yeah his leg is gone. At least from the knee down and it sucks and everyone is telling he is lucky. Lucky he’s not dead like Marvel, lucky he’s not comatose like Cato. Lucky he was driving.

Lucky, lucky he’s so goddamn lucky.

Except his leg is fucking gone, his mom can’t stop crying. Dad keeps on trying to touch his leg that isn’t fucking there and Rye and Bran don’t know where to look.

Delly sits in the corner and tries to talk but nothing really comes out.

If this is lucky, he’d rather just be dead and gone.

* * *

 

Finnick hasn’t been to the gym in three days. He hasn’t answered any of Jo’s texts, and everywhere he’d be on campus, she can’t find him.  She even stopped in the lab he works in with Cashmere and Cashmere hasn’t seen him either. She and Gloss went back to their parents for the week.

It’s maybe a bit pathetic, but she’s got Thai food and Jo really doesn’t want to be home after the fight Katniss and Madge had yesterday. Also Finnick is her best friend and he’s really important, so as a friend it makes sense to check up on someone who has just disappeared.

Before she loses her courage, she rapts firmly on the door marked Fourteen. There’s a pause, a long one and the sound of stumbling, before the door opens and there’s Finnick.

Finnick with scruff, the result of not shaving for a few days. His copper curls are still wet, like he’s just out of a shower and he’s shirtless. Blue jeans hug his hips and Jo freezes. She doesn’t know where to look.

‘Jo!’ Finnick grins, and she can smell the tequila on his breathe. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I uh…’her brain short circuits. She’s seen shirtless Finnick before, but never a wet, fresh from the shower shirtless Finnick. ‘I brought food.’ She holds the bag up.

Finnick grins and ushers her in. He stumbles a bit, leading her towards the living room.  This isn’t how she thought the evening would go, but he’s happy to see her and that’s good enough.  She kicks off her flats at the door way before she freezes.

Sitting cross legged on the floor in a shirt-Finnick’s shirt, the shirt he’s not wearing because it’s currently on an equally wet from a shower and equally drunk-Annie Cresta. There’s some video game on the screen and whoever the left side of the split screen-she assumes Finnick-is in some sort of perpetual freefall .

‘Hey!’ Annie smiles, a huge, wide full face smile and she’s gorgeous. ‘I didn’t know you were coming!’

‘Surprise,’ Jo says weakly shrugging.

‘Jo brought food!’ Finnick tells her and Annie cheers, clapping her hands excitedly.

‘Oh my god-you’re the greatest. Do you wanna play? Finn sucks giant dick at video games. Let me find another controller.’

Jo just stares, trying to fully comprehend the scene she’s watching. Annie in Finnick’s shirt, crawling to the cupboard that must hold all the video game stuff, Finnick who is not _not_ checking out Annie’s ass. Both of them drunk, with an almost empty bottle of tequila on the coffee table, and several beers and what looks like the rest of Annie’s clothes balled up on the couch.

They’re together. Her stomach drops seventeen floors and she feels like she swallowed a balloon that someone just punctured from the outside. They’re together and she doesn’t know how long or when or how or why. And Finnick never even thought to tell her that. Finnick didn’t think of her at all.

‘Actually-‘ Jo interrupts Annie’s drunk rambling about how bad Finnick is at video games. ‘Actually I’ve got a midterm to study for. I was just checking in.’

Finnick slaps her back harder than expected. She supposes his fine motor skills are some of the first to go when he’s so much more drunker than she’s ever seen him. ‘That’s so nice. You’re such a good friend. Isn’t Jo a good friend? Isn’t she Annie?’

‘She is!’ Annie agrees, nodding, tangled up in wires from different game consoles.

‘That’s me. I’m a great friend.’ Jo applauds herself for the lack of a catch in her throat.  ‘Anyway I’m going to go. I’ll see you…bye.’

The couple doesn’t even manage to say good bye, too drunk and just not caring enough to see that the younger girl is obviously distressed.

Jo makes it to the foyer of the building before she starts crying.

* * *

 

At three-forty –six in the morning, the third Thursday in October, Jason Cato having been taken off life support a day earlier died.

The funeral would be private, with only his family present.

Three months later his parents would send a link to the obituary in a ten word email to Haymitch Abernathy.


	12. pick up

There are a lot of bottles of wine in the back of the grocery show.  All different types, lined up with fancy labels and dark fluids lined the back shelves. Each one offering some sort of sophistication that would make her getting so plastered she wouldn’t be able to see straight more socially acceptable.

Because that was the plan; it wasn’t a good plan but Johanna Mason had managed to go through all twenty-one years of her life without any sort of break up. Sure there had been guys, and a few girls (first year was a riot) but Johanna had never gotten so attached to anyone she had dated the way she had Finnick Odair.

And Finnick Odair for a moment liked her. He liked her; this loud mouth girl from small town Minnesota who ran away and never looked back. She had been too loud, too much of a dreamer, where the average age for marriage was nineteen and twenty-one she’d have a kid already.  He liked her and maybe she was stupid and young and naive but she liked him back.

Mindlessly, Johanna reached out and grabbed a large bottle of chardonnay. It  says on the label it’s from Australia.  At the check-out, her ID is skimmed and money is exchanged; it’s a dull transition. 

Johanna makes it to the living room in her mostly empty house (after the blow up between Madge and Katniss, Madge went to stay with Gale. And Delly hadn’t come home) before plopping down on the lumpy cough, startling the cat. Jo didn’t bother trying to find a wine glass-they didn’t own wine glasses, they did their undergrad with cheap tequila and vodka shots.

 _Annie probably owned wine glasses_ , some dirty guilty little voice in her head that sounded too much like Finnick’s.  Annie and she were the same age, but if you looked at their lives Annie came out looking more mature.

Johanna chased that dirty thought with a simple flick of her wrist, the bottle opened and she tipped the wine back.  She choked. She forgot how much she didn’t like wine, but still Johanna persists tipping back more.

Finnick is dating Annie. Or maybe not dating-Finnick doesn’t date. He made that very clear, so crystal clear when she was eighteen and he was nineteen and they were at a party to celebrate a good tournament and she had whispered in his ear, trying to be coy or girly or just the right type of sexy to catch his eye, if he wanted to go upstairs to an empty bedroom.

Finnick is fucking Annie and he’s not fucking her. And she just doesn’t get it.  Annie is quiet, Annie is simple. She shows up to practise and yes, Johanna will fully admit she is the best player on their team but she’s not a team player. Annie knows she’s the best player on the team and she acts like that. Johanna’s the captain-she’s earned that spot and yet Annie knows better plays, gets the disc and turns the tide.

Annie is the one Prim and Rue go to for advice in Ultimate, not Jo. Annie. 

Annie Cresta came out of nowhere, and she just fucked up everything Jo worked for. She just came and took it.  _No_ , Jo remembers bitterly throwing back more wine. No Finnick found her and told Jo to let her try out.

How long were they fucking? Annie swore nothing was happening between them but that was a lie. How long had they been together? Since before she joined the team? 

> i am so out of shape fuck me

It was Cashmere who suggested it. There was a four by four tournament down in Alamosa on the weekend and while Enobaria couldn’t make it, she had insisted that the twins (and Finnick and by extension Annie) went.

Enobaria had argued, in all her legality though truthfully no one had put up any sort of a fight, that staying around just mourning and not doing anything was no sort of way to live and if everything in Boulder reminded them of Marvel or Peeta or Cato than they needed to go.

Which is how Annie found herself stuffed in the back seat of Gloss’s car, with Finnick in the back seat listening to a live Justin Beiber impersonation show between Gloss and Finnick with Cashmere playing DJ with her phone.

She is very aware her life is surreal.

She knows that they’re supposed to be back in Boulder; there’s a team that’s falling apart, a hole that no one really knows how to fix or what to say. She knows this and yet, this car ride, this tournament seems like the best idea ever.  This isn’t her team, or her mourning. And Finnick had to get so stupidly drunk and their hangovers were so bad that they spent the day sleeping it off and someone (Annie) threw up in the shower.   This tournament is something they need and as long as they’re back in time for Marvel’s funeral next Tuesday than this weekend is the best thing.

Annie’s phone buzzes in Finnick’s hand-which had been commandeered as his microphone, as Finnick’s phone was the one playing the music. Gloss’s phone is the GPS and Cashmere’s phone is Gloss and Cashmere in the front seat microphone.

‘You have a text,’ Finnick says, stopping from his backing vocals. ‘It’s from Prim. She’s wondering if you’re going to the girls’ night.’

‘Oh.’

Her phone buzzes again.  Finnick looks down. ‘And if you’ll give her and Rue a ride. At least if Small Sister Ultimate is Prim.’

‘It is.’ Annie has never been one to remember names, she prefers distinctive descriptions. 

‘What are you going to say?’ Finnick swipes to reply and he holds her phone out of reach. Even sitting he’s a good head or two taller than her and she’s held in by her seatbelt, leaning into him.

‘Give me my phone.’

‘Nah man,’ he grins. ‘Tell me what you want to say. No? Cause you’re going to kick ass at a tournie? That’s what you’re going to say.’

‘Finnick.’ Annie rolls her eyes exasperated.

Finnick taps out the message on her phone and sends it, dangling it out of reach. ‘Annie.’

‘You’re such an asshole.’

‘You like me anyway,’ Finnick sticks out his tongue, and he resumes to singing off key  before Cashmere jumps in to rap Nicki Minaj’s verse.

Annie gives him the bird.

* * *

 

Every month Madge made a point of holding a girls night, at least once a month. She knew that her team was full of socially awkward people, rough around the edges or just plain shy.  Until Prim and Rue showed up Friday night with a seven layer dip and a lot of chips, Katniss wasn’t even sure it would happen. Delly still hadn’t come home and Madge was at Gale’s for the past week.  Who knew where Annie was.

Actually, they did because Rue announced they had to take the bus because she and Finnick were on a trip to Alamosa.  Which made Jo leave.

And so everything was awkward and Madge didn’t show up.

So Girls’ Night has become Katniss babysitting Rue and Prim while Disney movies play on the old TV. It’s not exactly what she thought, but Katniss didn’t know what she thought.

It’s closer to two than it is one, and Prim and Rue are passed out like kittens curled on the couch; and Katniss takes this opportunity to sneak outside and try to breathe.

Everything has been too much. Madge isn’t here, Delly hasn’t come home. Marvel and Cato are dead and Peeta is in the hospital and Katniss doesn’t know what to do.

She doesn’t because there is no guide, no real protocol on what to do. She only know how to mourn her father, and now how to talk to survivors and she asked for help. She asked for help and Madge won’t help her.

Katniss doesn’t cry, when she closes the back door. She doesn’t cry, but there’s pressure building in her eyes, and she blinks furiously, almost tripping over Jo who has splayed out on the concrete step, an empty bottle of wine next to her.

Katniss waits for a cutting remark from Jo, something  with Brainless tacted on. But it doesn’t come.

Nothing comes.

Katniss looks down in shock; Jo is shivering slightly in the mid-October weather, staring at the chain link fence and the overgrown grass. There’s a puffiness around her eyes, like she’d been crying.

‘Are you okay?’ Katniss asks, hesitantly.  She and Jo are admittedly the least close out of their household, and neither of them do feelings well.

There’s silence.

Katniss sits down, her fingers hitting her thigh in a weird pattern, trying to cut the awkwardness down.  The silence just gets deeper, and longer and it becomes more and more clear that Jo won’t talk.

Madge is supposed to be here. She’s supposed to give the blunt truthful advice about love or relationships. Delly is supposed to be here. She’s supposed to be nice, and good and make them all like each other.

They aren’t.

‘Did I do something wrong?’ Katniss says, words spilling. She likes silence but somehow this silence is too much, too loud, too…too impenetrable. ‘I just I don’t know what to say to Peeta and I don’t know how to make it not bad and I-I just I don’t know what to say.’

The silence feels like smoke, clinging to her lungs making it hard to breathe.  She shouldn’t have said anything.    

‘You probably shouldn’t have tried to ask Delly what to say,’ Johanna says slowly and quietly, after ten minutes of a deep silence. ‘Delly’s got a lot of shit on her plate and you shouldn’t go and ask her how to try to get in her cousin-who is in the hospital after a really bad crash-pants. That’s just a bad idea all around.’

Katniss wilts; the hot air, the steam , the idea that Madge was wrong, because Jo would be on her side, because Jo doesn’t bullshit falls away. Jo thinks she is wrong.

‘Oh,’ Katniss says softly.

‘But Madge shouldn’t have yelled at you either,’ Johanna finishes. ‘This is a really emotional time and you learn a lot about people; how they handle stuff like this.  Madge lashes out  and runs away. Finnick decides that sex is the answer, and you ask for help.’

Katniss bites her lip at the mention of Finnick. Whatever the hell is going on with Annie and him is probably not sex. Only because Annie is really short and Finnick is really tall, so the logistics of how they could reasonably have sex when there is a good foot height difference alludes her.  ‘And what do you do?’

Johanna laughs bitterly, and makes an elaborate motion to the empty  wine bottle. ‘How do you think?’

It doesn’t add up, Johanna’s drinking. She didn’t start drinking when they heard about Marvel’s death. Jo didn’t start buying wine until a few days ago. 

‘Is that really it?’ Katniss asked.

Johanna doesn’t answer.

* * *

‘I need to eat,’ Annie announces as soon as they get into the hotel which conveniently is only a five minute drive from the fields.  She had endured a rousing karaoke car ride, interrupted by  Cashmere screaming  “Coke Truck” whenever she saw a coke truck, a variation on the punch buggy game that scared everyone and caused Gloss to swerve when his twin yelled out.  Annie is hungry, the gnaw someone’s face off, tired and travel sick hungry. And she is going to be fed, even if that means eating Finnick. ‘Now.’

‘You’re cute when you’re angry,’ Finnick teases, dropping his bag on the bed closest to the door. ‘It’s almost like watching a kid try to be a grown up.’

‘Fuck you,’ Annie spits. Half way through the car ride, Finnick decided that Annie’s height was  his newest target (his oldest and most trusty one was her lack of geography knowledge ) and when he was taking an interlude from backing vocals for Justin Beiber or lead for whatever new boy band song or the odd rap when Cashmere belted out Beyoncé as the Jay Z for her or the Nicki, he was making cracks about her height.  And how young her height made her.

They were all perfectly that Annie looked twenty-one and was only a year younger than Finnick who was twenty-two.  She is just short; Annie has accepted this, and knows besides Cashmere, Gloss, and Finnick all of who are tall and statuesque, she looks even smaller.  Even though statistically she is only three inches shorter than average, and they are all four to eight inches taller than average.

‘Only if you ask nicely,’ Finnick smiles.

‘Children please,’ Cashmere sings, not looking up from her phone as she google searches the nearest restaurant. ‘There’s an all you can eat sushi place a block from here.  That sound good?’

Annie is already at the door, holding her purse and tapping her foot. She doesn’t particularly like sushi-raw fish and all that-but she is hungry. She will eat

anything. ‘Yes, let’s go.’

* * *

 

She’s a masochist. It’s the only thing that makes sense.  Johanna has spent several days pondering this thought, swiping through old Facebook photos of her and Finn over the years. He had visited her last summer in Minnesota for a few days. Johanna had at the time conveniently pushed away the memory of a field party they had gone to in her small town, where one of the girls she went to high school with, and Finnick had disappeared for a few hours before returning to the bonfire with their clothes rumpled, and lipstick on his collar bone.

She has a blind spot for Finnick. She can admit this now, to herself in the morning of a horrible wine hangover.  Finnick doesn’t like her-he’s not hiding feelings for her, to preserve their friendship. He’s not answering her texts right away or meeting her for coffee on campus. He’s not putting in the effort that Peeta did for Katniss or how Gale does for Madge.

And there’s a part of Johanna (a huge part, the loud part that likes to put her fingers in her ears and scream over news she doesn’t like hearing) that wants to point out that Finnick has never been a PDA sort of guy. Even when they were sleeping together, he never made a show or an effort that she was different or special or anything like any of the other girls.

She just wasn’t, and that small party of her that saw what was going on in the periphery is now in the forefront. 

_Finn doesn’t like me._

_Why?_

Johanna has spent days since this cold awakening trying to figure it out. They have the same dry cutting sense of humour, they joke a lot. They play Ultimate and they drink the same beer. That’s a good grounds to like someone.

But he doesn’t like her-he likes Annie. Annie who he never met until five months ago, Annie who is best friends with his best friend’s twin sister and his lab partner’s roommate. Annie who plays Ultimate on the same level as him. Annie who is on his trivia team in the grad student pub even though she’s not in the grad student program. Annie who he came to rely on and got drunk with and Annie who he Instagrams and tags in Facebook photos and check ins-they got sushi last night somewhere in Alamosa. Annie who Finnick when out to dinner with-they never got dinner, they never went places together on road trips.

Annie.

Annie, Annie, Annie.

Who the fuck is Annie Cresta?

For the thirteenth time this morning, Jo presses play on the video Cashmere posted from the first game. Cashmere is keeping an updated video clips on Facebook and Jo keeps on clicking on them.

She watches someone on the sideline film the four on four matches. She watches Finnick through a long disc and Annie lay out to catch it.

She watches Gloss yell at the three of them, calling everyone Babe and when they win, Cashmere and Annie are thrown on Finnick’s and Gloss’s shoulders and they do laps.

She watches Finnick swing Annie around on the sidelines, Annie snorting like a horse as  Finnick leads her in an off time waltz to dub step remixes.

Jo’s a masochist.

She wishes she wasn’t.

* * *

The motel room smells like left over sushi and sweat. There was a huge line up for the shower, and Annie being the most smallest and easiest to pick up, was stuck on the top shelf over the closet and had to figure out to get herself down and thus had to shower last with all the cold water.

He’d feel bad about it, but he wanted a shower and Cashmere had already called age before beauty which meant she got first shower, than Gloss being fifteen minutes older.  And if he ever wanted hot water, sacrifices-in the name and image of Annie Cresta –had to be made.

Annie was not impressed, and only after did she realize that she didn’t pack pajamas.

‘I’ll sleep naked,’ Annie tells the room, wearing fuzzy socks and a large towel wrapped around her body. ‘That’s a thing. It can totally be a thing.’

‘It’s not going to be a thing,’ Cashmere says towel drying her hair. ‘You roll in your sleep and there is no one in this room who wants to see you naked.’

‘Ew,’ Finnick chimes in on cue. ‘Annie boobies.’  He’s already rummaging through his bag, so he misses the reproachful eyeroll that Annie is clearly sending towards him.  He has a clean dark jersey that’s old and too small but it’s from his first Worlds and he’d never fit in it, but he always brings it to any sort of tournament.  There’s some clean boxers and he tosses the clothing backwards knowing he’d hit her by the sound and the startled shock.

The fact that Annie pushed his head down as she passes him to get to the bathroom  to change, and when she comes back, she’s drowning in his clothes.

‘You look hot.’  Gloss says,  looking up from his phone.  ‘I ordered pizza for delivery. I’m not walking anywhere.’

‘I can deal with that.’ Finnick says easily, as Annie hip checks him as she climbs over him to roll onto the bed, and then fall face down exhausted.

Poor Cresta, as the only one of them who was an actual cutter, she was the one running the most, and while the field was half the full length of a real field, that was still seven full games of non-stop running.   If anyone deserves sleep, it’s her.

He tugs her dark curls that are still damp from the shower absent mindedly, and she growls at him. Finnick laughs, and turns his attention to whatever  Lifetime movie Cashmere found on the faulty TV for the next forty minutes before the pizza came.

* * *

 

He can hear them-or maybe he only thinks he can hear them.  It’s been a week and a half since he woke up from surgery with half a leg, and three days since they dropped his dose of painkillers to something more mild.

 _Don’t want to get addicted_ , the doctor with her shiny glasses had said.  Like that could be the worst thing that could happen to him after he lost his fucking leg.

If he wanted to develop a fucking drug habit, he damn well could.

But back to the point, in hush tones outside of his not completely closed door, he can hear his parents and the doctor and the physio therapist debate whether or not it is too early to start him on physio.  The doctors want him to start walking; trying to rebuild the muscle and his prostatic is on its way to being fully made.

His parents want to wait, to give him more time to recover or adjust to the fact that his leg is gone.

 Like there’s enough time in the world that could get him okay with the lack of his leg.  Like there’s a way to go back to something even close to normal.

There isn’t.

There isn’t and he wants something to happen and maybe he wants more drugs. But mostly, mostly he wants to be in charge of a decision in his life again. He’s twenty years old, not two and yet his parents are making his decisions. 

He’s never felt helpless in his life, not really.  Not when there was that horrible factory accident killing Gale and Katniss’s dads as well as what felt like half of their small northern Colorado town.  Not when Katniss and he finally-finally after years of being in love with her since middle school, watching her date Gale and having that crash and burn and trying to get her to see her as a friend or at least not an enemy-finally kissed and then went all the way and Katniss pushed him away.

He’s never felt as helpless as he has stuck in this stupid bed, watching his IV drip drip drip saline into his veins instead of morphine and half a leg.

God it would have been better if he died.

* * *

Sundays of a tournament, the last day of a tournament, is always without a doubt the worse day of a tournament. This is when everyone’s bones ache, there is a soreness in their skin and stiffness in their muscles.

In short everything fucking hurts.

And while they are not hungover (Finnick has reached a point of not wanting to touch alcohol of any time after earlier that week and the hangover that lasted two whole days. Gloss has a cold, and he hates drinking when he’s sick, Cashmere is too cheap and lazy to go grab liquor once she showered, and Annie isn’t one to drink alone), everyone else is.  And it comes down to do they want to win (yes of course) or do they want to win having fun (because winning without having fun is just too easy crushing them. They are all Worlds caliber players against people who may play club or rec or pick up.)

They decide, at Starbucks where Cashmere is frothing at the mouth for the stars to keep up Gold Level (She and Gloss share a Starbucks card, and Cashmere makes them all order separately using the app on her phone so she can get the points), that they will play to win for fun. Which means Gloss and Finnick both want to do Caesar Flickerman.

Over the expensive and so good coffee, Gloss and Finnick not so much ask for permission to do Ceasar Flickerman, but tell them. Which means today is going to be a shit show.

* * *

The pictures Johanna sees on Instagram make her chuck her phone across the room and sink further into her bed.

There’s Finnick and Gloss with shit eating grins, butt naked with discs covering their crotches that Cashmere has captioned _Caesar Flickerman_.  There’s a picture of Annie fake barfing as Finnick and Gloss  hug her, Annie’s gracefully covering their bits.

What’s worse though, is the video Gloss posts to the Youtube Channel where he explains Ultimate lingo and slang and does trick shots.

 _‘Caesar Flickerman,’_ Gloss narrates. _‘Caesar was one of the greats back in the late nineties and he was someone who read the rule book-and that’s when he realized. There is no rule in ultimate that says a player has to wear clothes on the field. No where. So he started playing naked, because it’s very hard to mark a naked person and take them seriously.  Today at the Alamosa Four on Four tournament, with my team the Careers featuring my twin sister, and handler for the US women’s world team, Cashmere, the genius kid Annie who played Worlds since she was fifteen, and Finn, handler on the US men’s world team as well, are playing Caesar Flickerman.’_

 _‘Actually,’_ Cashmere interjects, stopping from tossing in warm up which had been in the background of Gloss’s opening. _‘Annie and me aren’t. ‘_

 _‘Yeah,’_ Gloss nods. _‘Because I don’t want you guys thinking of my sister or my almost baby sister naked. You pervs.’_

What follows is a montage, filmed by someone on the sideline of all the games being played. Of how bugged eye and slack jawed their opponents are when two gorgeous and toned naked men race at them.

There’s a clip of Finnick chasing Annie around, as she squeals, shrieking _‘PUT  CLOTHES ON BEFORE I CHOP IT OFF. ‘_ Annie’s laughing, like this is a regular occurrence. And it probably is.

When Finnick finally catches Annie, she’s throwing him shorts laughing, twisting her body so his dick doesn’t touch her.  Finnick’s bits are blurred out.

 _‘Finn is very good with the ladies,’_ Gloss tells the camera. _‘They’re always telling him to put on more clothes when he takes them off.’_

Johanna closed her computer then.

* * *

 

Madge holds her phone looking at the last text message Delly sent. It was just a simple one, an answer to if Delly wanted to get coffee.

‘How is she?’ Gale asks, from his computer desk. He’s wearing ultimate shorts, with wet hair from the shower sex they had earlier-her period and the lack of quarters for Gale to do laundry made them have shower sex (which isn’t as fun as everyone said.).

‘The same I think,’ Madge flops back on his mattress, counting the water stains on the ceilings.   ‘They’re all just trying to get through this.’

Gale’s apartment is too quiet. Normally, this would have been a blessing.  But the background noise that fit the tired student housing building like a glove-the radiator clanking, the water running in the pipes from the apartment above them, Peeta singing in the kitchen as he baked.

She would give anything to get that off tune, horrible singing back.

‘How are you?’ Madge asks her boyfriend. Since the accident, he had been too quiet. It is like everything he is feeling is pulled deep inside, hoarded up somewhere and she’s so worried about what will happen when the pressure-the silence, the everything-just boils over and explodes.

She’s been there when Gale exploded before. It’s not pretty and while she’s never been scared of her boyfriend before-the ruthless and callowness of him burns like liquid nitrogen.

‘I don’t know,’ Gale says honestly. 

Katniss hesitates before knocking on the door to Jo’s room. After the drunken heart to heart on the back step it feels like some barriers have been crossed or something. And it makes her wonder if Johanna has advice or something about Peeta and Madge and Prim and even Delly.

She’s not expecting to find Jo rubbing her eyes, huddled in blankets.

‘…Are you okay?’ she asks, hesitatingly. Of course Jo is okay-Jo is always okay.

But Johanna with her red eyes and her splotchy skin doesn’t look okay.  She looks a million miles away from okay.  ‘I’m fine.’

Katniss nods, because if Jo says she’s fine than she’s fine only Katniss can see that there are snotty tissues on the floor, and the video paused on the screen is a video she saw briefly on Facebook has Finnick holding a laughing Annie.

And everything doesn’t exactly click into place but it becomes clearer. Jo likes Finnick-which everyone knows, but Finnick is dating Annie. Which is new. But it makes sense, they’re both older, they’re both friends with the blond twins. And they both have really sarcastic sense of humour.  Katniss honestly doesn’t care if Annie and Finnick are together or not-it has nothing to do with her or Jo really.  The season is almost done and they’re going to move into the turf field for conditioning.

‘Finnick is dating Annie?’ Katniss says.

It’s the wrong thing to say by the way Johanna hisses. Katniss rocks back on her heels.  It’s too late to take the words back, and the way Johanna reacts.

‘I’m sorry,’ Katniss offers.

‘Don’t be,’ Johanna spits.  ‘Why the fuck would you be sorry?’

Katniss doesn’t have anything to say to that. She wishes she did, she wants some magical words that will make it better. She wants Madge for knowing emotions and being good with people and she wants Delly because no one hates Delly and no one can be angry around her.

Katniss bites her lip, ‘I still am.’

She hopes that’s enough.  She can see in Jo’s eyes, it isn’t enough.

* * *

The church is filled. Annie isn’t much for churches or religion-God gave her no peace when her mother died, but it looks like Marvel’s family was Roman Catholic.  She will admit it is a pretty church.

Marvel had a huge family, and a lot of friends. Annie found herself in a back pew behind a pillar, squeezed in the only black dress she had that isn’t club wear, with a black pashmina that hides the lack of fabric on the back. Enobaria is closest to the wall, then Cashmere, then Gloss, then Finnick and then her.

Annie doesn’t see where the rest of the team is, she assumes they are somewhere.  She did see Haymitch earlier, hanging around the front entrance of the church.   

The service is beautiful.  When Finnick squeezes her thigh when his mother spoke, she covers his hand with hers’ and squeezes.

She holds his hand.

* * *

 

Katniss can’t remember the service; she can feel Prim’s nails digging into her palm.   She can’t remember breathing.

Because in the aisle near the right of the church, in the front row. Peeta and Delly and their family are sitting.

Peeta is there, alive. And Katniss can’t stop the tears running down her face from seeing him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One, it's been a while. Happy New Year love.
> 
> Two, wow since I updated, my wedding got cancelled so that's weird. Also I was going to get married. 
> 
> Three, the real life Finnick Odair-like the guy who Finnick in Universal is back in my life and he's great and also we're dating.
> 
> Four, seevikifangirl is my tumblr.

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is seevikifangirl


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